


Things That Shine

by intrajanelle



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Agoraphobia, Anxiety Disorder, Depression, F/F, F/M, Graphic depictions of war-time violence, IED mentioned, M/M, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prisoner of War, Prosthesis, Therapy, War Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3594387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrajanelle/pseuds/intrajanelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The secretary at the V.A. office has long hair and blue eyes and his name is Bucky. Steve thinks he’s maybe a little bit in love.</p><p>Or:</p><p>Steve Rogers got back from his final tour in Iraq six months ago. He hadn’t left his apartment nearly the entire time he’d been home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the result of me going to Career Services to talk about my future, like two months ago. And the girls at the front desk were gossiping the entire time and I couldn't help but think that if they were Bucky and I was Steve, this painful appointment could be a love story.
> 
> Warning: This fic is going to explore many different aspects of mental health as Steve goes to therapy for PTSD, among other things. I have done a lot of research and tried to be as sensitive as possible toward the subject matter, but if I am being inaccurate/insensitive please do not hesitate to let me know. Also please heed the tags!!

Steve Rogers got back from his final tour in Iraq six months ago. He hadn’t left his apartment nearly the entire time he’d been home.

He was officially retired from the Army, had a lease on a place in downtown Washington, a service that delivered groceries to his front step, and a middle-aged short-haired cat named Cap. He had a bedroom with a bed he never slept in, a workout room with a new treadmill he’d put nearly 600 miles on already, and an old record player that had been his ma’s.

He’d been out exactly twice. Once in May, a few days after he’d moved into his new place. He had cleaned up the empty beer bottles and pizza boxes—remnants of the food his friends Sam and Riley had brought over as a “housewarming slash sorry we didn’t help carry your furniture up the stairs” gift—and decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. To get to know the area.

Everything had been fine for the first ten minutes or so. His apartment was in a family neighborhood. There was a kindergarten down the street, young couples walking their dogs and their kids. Markets occupied the first floors of most of his neighbors buildings, crates of fresh fruit spilled across the sidewalk. The air smelled like pizza and slow-roasted chicken. It reminded him of growing up in Brooklyn. He’d been fine with that. He’d been fine.

He’d been smiling. He’d been about to buy a bushel of apples, was reaching for a bag when an old minivan crept past his side of the street. Its engine gave one last heaving grunt before it backfired. For a moment Steve stood there, hand extended, frozen, counting out three slow heartbeats before all his blood rushed from his limbs. It left him feeling bereft and tingly. Like he’d imploded.

He lowered his hand to his side, unsure. If he reached for an apple would he still be able to wrap his fingers around it? Everything in his peripheral seemed out-of-focus. Not blurred, not hazy, but surreal. Like watching TV and knowing with a far-reaching certainty that everything he was looking at didn’t actually exist. The world was 2D and suddenly bright. Later, he’d realize that when he turned around he’d caught the glare off the minivans passenger window. At the moment he thought “sniper.”

He ran. And only after he’d made the three blocks and two flights of stairs home and could finally put his front door between him and Everything, did he feel like he could take an entire breath again.

The rest of it was just cowardice on his part, really.

No matter what Sam said stuff about PTSD that had led to agoraphobia, depression, and general anxiety disorder, no matter how many times he insisted Steve just needed to talk to someone, get some help, Steve was certain beyond a shadow of doubt that all of his problems stemmed from his own inability to get himself well. And since his mental state was self-prescribed as being entirely his fault he was determined to handle it on his own and not bother anyone with his problems.

So. He hired a grocery service and he bought clothes and plants and cat food online and he jury-rigged a way to toss his trash from his third floor apartment to the cans below his kitchen window.

He surrounded his apartment with succulents and geraniums and opened all the windows day and night once summer settled over Maryland. Sometimes he even managed to sit on the balcony and look out over the city without feeling like his ribs were crushing his lungs.

The second time he left his apartment was in early November.

Sam had been over the day before with good news:

He and Riley were getting married.

Sam and Steve had dated a little, between their second and third tours. And it had been good, really good. Sam was practical and considerate and could cook waffles so light and fluffy Steve had almost cried the first time he’d tried them.

But they’d ended things years ago and Sam and Riley had known each other nearly their entire lives, longer than either of them had known Steve, and Steve was happier for them than he knew how to put into words. So when he heard the news he pulled Sam into a hug and congratulated him with a beer and asked if there was anything he could do.

“Yeah,” Sam said, looking him in the eye across the couch. And Steve knew what he was going to say long before he said it, almost wanted to stop the words about to come out of his best friend’s mouth because he couldn’t even imagine refusing. “You could be my best man.”

And then Steve really did cry. Big fat tears rolling down the sides of his face. He nodded, and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah of course,” Steve said, wiping tears away on the back of his hand. “Thank you, man, it means a lot.”

Sam just patted his shoulder and they didn’t say anything for a few moments. Cap was batting the coffee table with one paw. Her face serious, like she held a personal offense against cheap plywood.

When Cap finally gave up her vendetta to curl into a fluffy ball beneath Steve’s feet, Sam took a business card out of his pocket. It was small and white, had a name, a number, and a profession on one side, and “3 p.m.” scribbled on the other.

“She works at the V.A.,” Sam said, licking his lips. “Mental Health Center. She said she’s free at 3 p.m. every day this week.”

Steve took the card. He looked at the tiny print, the name. Natasha Romanoff.

“She’s a friend,” Sam admitted. “Helped Riley a lot when…”

Steve pretended not to notice the way Sam’s hands flexed in his lap. It’d been years, but Sam still couldn’t talk about Riley’s accident. Riley would take off his prosthetic leg and reach across the table to kick people with it in the middle of dinner, he’d run marathons with his running blades, and visit his therapist once a week. But Sam still froze when he heard so much as a plane flying over Steve’s apartment building. And he still couldn’t bring himself to talk about the details.

Or so Steve thought. Which is why Steve’s surprised when Sam let out a breath, the tension leaving his joints before he said, “Helped me a lot too.”

Steve looked up and Sam was smiling.

Sam had talked about Riley with this woman. Steve could tell. That was good, Steve knew. That really meant something.

Steve nodded, but he might have been nodding the whole time, he couldn’t remember. All he knew for sure is that when he slid the card into his pocket and told Sam he’d visit the V.A. the very next day Sam’s smile looked more genuine than Steve had seen it in years. Since the day they’d been huddled at an American army base in Iraq and their commanding officer had stopped in front of them and said, “I’m so sorry Sergeant Wilson. There’s been an accident.”

So. Steve left his apartment.

He got up at 6:30 the next morning. Although “got up” was a matter of opinion, as he hadn’t gone to sleep in the first place. Suffice to say, he got out of bed at 6:30, left Cap curled in a content heap in the center of his comforter, and padded into his kitchen. He made a giant pot of coffee. Then he set out Cap’s breakfast. Then he made himself breakfast, consisting of two granola bars and half a banana, before he replaced his sleep pants with workout shorts and clambered, shirtless, onto his treadmill.

Ten miles later, covered in sweat and shaking, Steve cooled down by collapsing onto the floor of his living room and pouring a bottle of water on his face. He felt overheated and a little like he was falling apart.

It was like his seams were coming undone but he couldn’t tell where they started so he couldn’t so much as fathom how to begin putting himself back together. He thought that if he could find the ends, that instead of sewing them up the way they should be he’d just pull and pull. Until everything was laid bare. If he could find the ends he wouldn’t be laying on his floor in a puddle of his own making with Cap butting at his head, mewling like she was worried he’d never get up again.

Steve thought, maybe he might not. And then he sat up. And then one leg at a time he stood and walked into the bathroom to take a shower.

He cleaned himself and shaved and dried his hair. He picked out clean pants and a button-down and, on a whim, his comfiest brown sweatshirt. He felt safest in his thick brown combat boots and when he pulled them on he could feel his heart slow to a relaxed thudding behind his ribs.

He grabbed his keys, which had been hanging dusty and unused on a hook by his front door, and his cellphone and Natasha’s card. He grabbed his wallet and a pair of white earbuds. Everything went in his pockets, like armor, like weaponry, like he was preparing himself for battle.

He didn’t think about the actual leaving until he was doing it. It wouldn’t get done otherwise. If he contemplated it he’d sit staring at his door for the rest of his life, sorting through “what ifs” and “maybes.” So he didn’t do any thinking until his hand was wrapping around his door knob. And even then it was just to ponder, “Why are they called door ‘knobs’? Is it because knobs are like nubs? Little, useless nubs?”

By the time Steve’s stood in the hallway with the door locked behind him it was too late to either be overtaken by curiosity and turn right around to Google who’d named door knobs on his computer, or to be scared into not leaving at all.

It was too late. He’d left. There was no turning back from this.

Only apparently there was. Steve almost turned around a dozen times while he was still inside his building. His apartment was on the third floor and on each landing he contemplated turning around, each time he heard an unidentifiable sound he almost went backward, each time he heard the click and thud of someone leaving their own apartment he hid his enormous bulk in one nook or cranny or another and waited until they passed him. Then he seriously contemplated turning around and never setting foot outside his apartment again.

That was unrealistic though.

Even if he perfected the art of being a hermit and could potentially live a long and healthy life secluded in his humble abode, one day he might have to move. Or there could be a fire in his building and he’d be ushered outside by firefighters. Or Cap could get sick and he’d need to take her to a vet. Or his best friends could get married and he’d need to have enough of a handle on his life to stand right beside them and be Sam’s best man.

He knew he couldn’t just micromanage his entire life away because he didn’t want to burden anyone with his problems. So he put one foot in front of the other and no matter how many times he contemplated turning around, he found one more reason to keep going.

Headphones securely in place, Marvin Gaye spilling across his ear drums, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched, head down, eyes open just wide enough to tell where he’s going, Steve Rogers practically ran straight to the V.A. office.

A walk that should have been made in about 30 minutes, he made in 12. He strode through the sliding doors, sweaty and quivering. He felt like he’d just ran another 10 miles. But he’d made it.

He made it. He felt himself smiling. He was out of the house and at the V.A. Mental Health Center and he was going to go to his appointment today and tomorrow and the next day and everything was going to be better. Everything was going to be fine.

And then he looked up. And he felt like he was falling.

For once in his long life it was the good kind of falling. The kind where cool blue eyes were involved; a sharp face, shoulder-length brown hair, two-day old stubble, an oddly metal prosthetic peeking out of the left arm of a t-shirt. The shirt said: In Memory of When I Cared.

Steve was pretty sure he was halfway in love.

Then the guy looked up from his desk, fixed his eyes on Steve, and squinted. He said, “Can I help you?”

And Steve didn’t know what else to do. He fled.

+

Initially, right after offering Steve Natasha’s card and telling him about the sessions, Sam had offered to come with him. Moral support. He’d walk Steve over, sit with him in the lobby, wait outside during his appointment, and then walk him back when it was over. Steve had insisted he could make it on his own, that Sam had done enough.

Now though, Steve wished he’d taken Sam up on his proposal. He’d known, objectively, that he’d have to interact with people while he was out. He just hadn’t expected anyone to look like sex on a stick. He had not been mentally prepared to speak to anyone that good-looking today, or any day, but today especially. Today, Steve had wanted to walk into the V.A. without being so much as mildly attracted to anyone, discuss his issues, and leave with his mission accomplished. It wasn’t that much to ask.

Steve internally cursed his bisexuality. Then he cursed his terrible record with speaking to beautiful people. Then he sat down on a bench and stared at his feet.

He was awful at conversation on the best of days, but when he was even a tad attracted to someone any part of him that was a decent conversationalist went flying headfirst out the window that was his easily overwhelmed brain. Peggy could attest to that.

If only Peggy was in the U.S. and not on a secret mission that he wasn’t supposed to know about in Russia, he could have called her. And she could have told him to stop being stupid, and he could have turned around and gone back in time for his appointment.

As it was, she was on a mission, and Steve was hiding on a park bench beside the V.A. center. And he was probably actually lost and not hiding at all. He would have called Sam to come find him and go with him to the appointment but that felt a little like defeat. Also, his cellphone didn’t have a signal.

The good part of all of this was that Steve really did miss the woods. Staying in his apartment was a comfort to him, it kept him away from threats and people and cars. All three of which he no longer knew how to handle on his own. The woods, however, was similar. There were plenty of hiding places if someone came along, and hardly anyone seemed to be walking this particular path. And this deep among the trees he could barely hear the sounds of the city. No horns or engines or tires screeching across asphalt.

The light filtering through the branches was soft and patchy, a breeze picked up around him carrying the scent of the winter to come, the scent of clean smoke and snow. Steve wished there were more leaves on the trees themselves, he’d always loved autumn, but this what he got for only emerging at the beginning of November. He supposed this was what bears must feel like after a long hibernation, like the world had moved on without them.

Steve sat for long minutes, letting the wind ruffle his hair. He played with the cord of his earbuds and wondered what it would be like if he were normal.

When he was a kid he’d been so sick so much of the time that he’d barely had a childhood. Between the asthma, the allergies, and the scoliosis, he’d been lucky to spend two weeks at a time without having to visit a doctor. And then he’d grown up, joined an experimental fitness program for disabled teens, headed by a brilliant doctor, Dr. Erskine, and he’d put on some muscle. He slowly trained his spine with relentless exercise until it straightened, he took new drugs and exercised diligently until his lungs barely ever bothered him. And then he joined the army. And now he was sitting on a park bench wondering if he’d ever know what it felt like to be completely one hundred percent healthy.

When he heard the crunch of twigs breaking behind him it was almost a relief. Something loud and foreboding enough to yank him from his thoughts. Also, an affirmation. That he was right to be afraid of the world.

He spun around, taking a defensive stance, reaching for where his gun should’ve been strapped to his thigh. And a bunny crept out of a bush, staring up at him with wide skittish eyes. Steve deflated. He felt a little silly, a little useless.

“Steve Rogers?”

Steve almost jumped. He almost did a lot of things, some involving the hundreds of ways Steve knew how to decapitate a full grown human being with a twig. He was rather proud that he turned around gradually with some level of self-control. He was also rather proud that when he saw the sexy receptionist standing on the path behind him he didn’t make an absolute fool of himself. Instead he put an entire coherent response together.

“Um, yes? Hi,” he said.

The receptionist raised an eyebrow.

“Are you okay?” the man asked, crossing his arms. He had a dark gray sweater on now, and fingerless leather biker gloves. But Steve could still see the metal fingers on his left hand where they curled around the man’s bicep.

Steve didn’t really want to talk about his own feelings, not that that was new. But he did want to ask about the prosthetic. The metal, from what Steve had seen, was made up of joints and panels that formed a fully-functioning limb. It was molded to be the twin of the man’s flesh and blood arm. Steve hadn’t thought that kind of technology was possible yet, and he knew he hadn’t been sequestered in his apartment long enough to miss out on a new wave of technological advancement. So he was mostly curious. Mostly, he wondered if Sam and Riley knew about this.

Looking up at the man’s face Steve realized he’d probably been quiet for an awkward length of time. But the man didn’t seem fazed. He ushered Steve to sit on the bench and sat beside him. When Steve still didn’t say anything the man pulled back the sleeve on his metal arm and flexed it for him.

“Never seen anything like this before?” he asked. He didn’t seem uncomfortable by Steve’s staring, or even surprised. In fact, he seemed a little proud, like he was fluffing his feathers.

Steve shook his head.

“Its pretty new. I had a standard issue one for a few years, but last June the guys in the tech department hired a new supervisor. Tony Stark?” The man paused as if Steve might recognize the name. He didn’t and the man shrugged. “Anyway, he outfitted me with this. I volunteered because he needed volunteers. And I suppose it would be a bigger deal, but my arm is the only one of Stark’s models that he was able to make fully-functioning.”

He talked a little bit more, about the joints and plates and how he cleaned it every morning. How sometimes the plates clamped down and his hand got stuck in his pants pocket or his arm got stuck in his sleeve, or, once, embarrassingly, his finger got stuck in a clump of a girl’s hair after he’d snuck his hand behind her neck to kiss her.

The man’s voice was low, gravelly, and strangely soothing. Like churning fertilizer in the spring, fixing plant beds, and watching things grow.

After a while Steve felt his heart rate, that he hadn’t even realized was pretty high, slowing down, matching the rhythm of the man’s voice.

“My name’s Bucky, by the way,” the man said. “James Buchanan Barnes, but everyone calls me Bucky.”

Steve cleared his throat and managed, “My name is Steve.”

Bucky smiled. It was a crooked, little thing, but it made heat rush to Steve’s cheeks.

“I know, pal,” Bucky said, and then after a pause, “Sam told me about you. Told me to expect you this week.”

Of course he had, Steve thought. Because Sam was the greatest friend in the entire universe, and even if Steve stubbornly insisted he could get by on his own, he would go out of his way to make sure Steve was never truly helpless.

“I’m sorry to put you to all this trouble…” Steve said, rubbing the back of his neck. He could feel the heat rising on his skin.

“Nah,” Bucky said, grinning at him. “It’s fine. Three years ago, I was the one running out of the V.A. If Natasha hadn’t run after me and dragged me back by my ponytail who knows where I’d be.”

Steve pulled Natasha Romanoff’s card out his pocket and showed Bucky.

“Yup, that’d be Natasha,” Bucky said. He just smiled for a minute, the gentle ease about his features made Steve feel like he was maybe melting. “We can stay here as long as you want. Just let me know if you’re ready to go in.”

Steve nodded and relaxed into the bench.

 **  
** It was a Tuesday in November and it was the first time he’d been outside for six months and Bucky Barnes placed a hand on his shoulder and talked his ear off about baseball and pizza and how many Christmas presents he’d already bought for his goddaughter, and, honestly, Steve already felt a little bit better.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention last time that I stole the title from a Taylor Swift song ("Ours"), because I'm a loser?? But mostly because of the music video. So. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter are in the end notes, because they are a tad spoiler-y. But they are there if you are uncomfortable reading without.
> 
> Writing this has become pretty therapeutic for me, so I hope to finish it soon! I hope you enjoy reading. :D

They stayed like that for two hours. Long enough that Steve’s ass went kinda numb and Bucky started rolling his prosthetic shoulder and making jokes about having to grease his joints.

When they finally made it back to the V.A. Steve was still thirty minutes early for his appointment. Probably due to the fact that he hadn’t slept the night before and had rushed from his apartment after his shower without checking a clock. He was a little shocked that he’d been so worked up he hadn’t even considered the time, but he wasn’t gonna overthink it.

Instead of making him sit by himself in the waiting room, Bucky let Steve behind his desk and pulled an extra chair over. They sat, side-by-side, playing Solitaire on Bucky’s computer. Steve was initially wary, but after it became clear that Bucky was hopeless with cardgames he reached over and took the mouse from Bucky’s hand. He won the game in ten seconds and turned back around to see Bucky smiling at him, wide and satisfied, like Bucky was the one who’d done the winning.

They stayed like that, until a woman walked up to them and placed a filing folder on Bucky’s desk.

The woman was small, compact, Steve could see the muscles flexing under her suit jacket like corded wires were tucked into plastic casing. Her gaze was severe but almost fond as she looked Bucky over. Then she turned to Steve. Unconsciously Steve felt himself straightening his back, like he was still in Basic, his superior officer looming over him, searching for any and all weaknesses.

“Saw you took an early lunch, Barnes,” the woman said.

Bucky barely looked at her, just grabbed the file she’d handed him and started entering data onto his computer.

“Yup,” he said.

“Gone for awhile.”

“Yeah.”

“You must be Steve,” the woman said, turning abruptly to stare Steve right in the eye. She extended a hand. “Natasha Romanoff.”

“Steve Rogers,” Steve said. He’d guessed this woman was “Natasha” but he’d been hoping he was wrong. He couldn’t imagine hiding much from this woman’s piercing eyes.

“My office is down the hallway, second on the right,” Natasha said, pointing. “You can go on in. I have a thing or two to discuss with Mr. Barnes here.”

“Okay,” Steve said, shooting Bucky one last look as he went to stand.

Bucky smiled at him. He didn’t seem alarmed so Steve tried not to worry.

“I’ll be here when you’re done,” Bucky said in passing.

And Steve hadn’t known him all that long but the fact that there was someone waiting for him, Bucky waiting for him, made the walk to Natasha’s office that much easier.

+

Natasha Romanoff’s office was surprising.

From one good look at the woman Steve had expected neat, functional furniture, required textbooks in chronological order, a small desk with few embellishments, and maybe a gun or two hidden in her top drawer.

The first thing Steve noticed was the “hang in there” cat poster on the wall. Next to the cat poster was a bookcase filled with worn paperbacks, comic books, and DVDs. There were more posters too, each in varying shades of neon, each more cliché than the last. There was a magnetic dart board on the other side of the room, the darts arranged in a smiley face. And in a corner were two bright purple beanbags and a collection of building blocks that looked like they’d seen better days.

Natasha’s desk was in a state of what seemed to be perpetual disarray. Paper and crayons were strewn on top of more paper and more crayons. The only part of her office that seemed neat was the large red filing cabinet in the corner and the clipboard on her desk chair. The clipboard had one piece of paper on it and written on it was Steve’s name.

Steve let out a surprised huff and took a seat.

The seat turned out to be a comfy chair, one of the spinny persuasion. For the minute or two that Steve waited it was a battle to fight the urge to tuck his legs underneath him and spin in wobbly circles, but fight it he did. He only turned the chair so he could see the door from where he was seated and refrained from any further spinning.

When Natasha came in it was with an air of practiced efficiency. She scooped up the crayons and plopped them in a drawer, collected the scattered childlike drawings and folded them carefully before tucking them into her purse. She grabbed her clipboard before plopping behind her desk. When she looked up at Steve it was as she was tucking a pen behind her ear.

“Sorry.” She said. “I have a kid. And a husband who fancies himself five years old.”

Steve laughed and assured her that it was alright.

For a long moment she just watched him. Her eyes didn’t miss anything. Not the way Steve’s feet were pointed toward the doorway, not the stiffness about his frame, not the hard line of his jaw. Steve half-expected her to already know everything about him from the way he’d tied his combat boots.

But if she did, she didn’t let on. Natasha was brusque. Once she started talking she didn’t talk around the subject. Her questions were all direct and efficient and she only asked Steve to elaborate on the details if that was something he seemed comfortable doing.

“How long have you been in the military?” she asked. “What are your triggers? What are your habits? Explain your daily routine.”

The way in which she dissected his life seemed less like he was a bug under a microscope, like he’d feared, and more like she was sizing up an enemy. Or, assessing a comrade. Steve rather hoped for the former.

They talked for nearly an hour and a half before Steve realized he’s said just about everything there was to say.

He’s told her about his childhood being raised by his ma. How he’d never known his dad. How he’d gone to college for art for a year before signing up for the army when his ma became sick. How it’d felt to grow up from a shrimpy sickly child into a man that people viewed as a weapon.

He told her about Sam and Riley. And Riley’s accident.

He didn’t tell her about the car. He didn’t feel ready for that. He didn’t know if he’d ever feel ready for that.

At 4:30 Natasha checked her watch, stashed her notepad, and told Steve their session was over.

“That’s it?” Steve asked. False pretenses and too many bad movies had alluded Steve to thinking therapy would be a long and painful process. Alternatively, he’d been afraid Natasha would medicate him to the gills, deem him “cured,” and leave him once again to his own devices. That didn’t seem to be the case at all.

Natasha merely raised her eyebrows. “That’s it.” She paused and then conceded, “I’d like a couple more sessions before we come up with a treatment plan for you. In your case cognitive-behavioral therapy seems like our best bet, but I’d like some more time before we decide anything permanent.”

Steve nodded, slowly. He stashed that term to research on his own, when he got back to his apartment.

Natasha gave him permission to call her at home if he had any problems, and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow?” Like she might not.

Steve told her he’d be there.

And she smiled the tiniest bit. A twitch at the left side of her lips that made Steve feel like he just aced an exam.

As he stood to leave Natasha said, “One more question, actually.”

He stood while she sat, and he must have been twice her size in this position but she still seemed to loom over him. Her eyes pinned him to the carpet, like a bug in a web.

“What do you want out of therapy?” Natasha asked. “What’s your endgame?”

“I want to go to Sam’s wedding,” Steve said, frowning. They’d talked about this.

“I know,” Natasha said. “But I’d like to know what, beyond the wedding, do you want to accomplish here?”

Steve thought about his friends. He thought about Sam and Riley. He thought about Peggy and how sad she’d be if she knew what he’d been going through. He thought about his ma. He thought about Cap and Angie and, briefly, Bucky.

But mostly he thought about Morita and Dum Dum and Gabe and Falsworth and Jacques. He thought about how he’d like to visit them, one day.

He told Natasha that and she didn’t flinch, only folded her hands in her lap.

“Good,” Natasha said. “We’ll get you there.”

She didn’t see him out but it was probably for the best. Bucky was waiting for him at his desk and the second Steve saw him his knees turned to mush. He couldn’t see his own face but he was almost a hundred percent certain he looked like a puppy who was just reunited with his master after a long and harrowing stay at the kennel.

Bucky was standing by his chair, sweater on, pushing his keys into his pocket. When he looked up at Steve he smiled.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“Fine,” Steve said.

“Awesome,” Bucky said, an even warmer smile gracing his face.

There was an awkward moment where Steve stood facing Bucky, not ready to say goodbye. And Bucky stood, hands flexing, looking like he maybe didn’t want to say goodbye either.

Then Bucky blurted, “I live by your apartment. I mean– Not that I know where you live. I do though. I looked it up in the system and, shit. Fuck, now I sound like a stalker. I promise I’m not stalking you.”

Steve interrupted him by laughing. If he’d been a little less emotionally drained he probably would have doubled over, with tears leaking from his eyes. Bucky was adorable.

As it was Steve felt like this day had been the emotional equivalent of a hammer to the face. So he laughed as much as he could and then straightened to formally ask Bucky if he’d liked to walk home together.

It wasn’t until they were halfway down the V.A.’s driveway that Steve realized what “walking home together” entailed. He fiddled with his earbuds as they strolled down a side street, approaching the main road. They’d been lucky that it was just past rush hour and they hadn’t come across a car yet. But it would happen. And Steve had been out of the dating pool for awhile but he was pretty sure he didn’t want a guy he was interested in to see him have a full-blown panic attack on the first day they’d met.

Luckily, Bucky seemed to understand. He’d been in the middle of a rant about how someone had mistook him for a Yankees fan and how big a mistake that had been, when his eyes flicked over the set of Steve’s shoulders. Then down to Steve’s hands, one of which was shoved in the pocket of his sweater.

“Hey, man, you can totally put those on. I understand,” Bucky said, reaching for Steve’s free hand and squeezing it.

Steve slid him a grateful look and quickly, one-handedly, put his earbuds on. He started playing Beyoncé’s new album, “XO” blasting from his tiny speakers.

Bucky led him down the sidewalk and didn’t really let go of him until they were outside Steve’s building. Steve tried taking his earbuds out to say goodbye but Bucky waved him off, said it was okay loud enough for Steve to hear him even over his music. When Bucky squeezed his hand one last time and let go to head in the direction of his own place, Steve stood just outside his building, watching him until he turned a corner.

He forgot he was on the sidewalk, at rush hour, that there were people milling around him, and cars on the road. All he thought about was Bucky and Beyoncé and the sun on his shoulders.

+

Sam and Riley came over for dinner that night.

They brought curry and beer and settled on Steve’s couch to watch bad horror movies, until Cap, who hated loud TV, and TV, and most people, curled into an indignant ball under the coffee table. Sam had been working all day, the V.A. had taken some of the vets on a formal “field trip” to a baseball game. Dressing in uniform left Sam exhausted on the best of days. Today, he passed out an hour earlier than expected. In his sleep he curled similarly to Cap, although he chose to curl into Riley’s side instead of under the furniture.

Riley ran his fingers over Sam’s shoulder with his left hand, engagement ring catching on Sam’s sweaty skin.

Steve had offered his congratulations to Riley earlier but he sat up straighter in his rocking chair then, and whispered, “I really am so happy for you two. I’m honored you want me in your wedding. Thank you for that, again.”

Riley looked up and the expression on his face was a little sad.

“You know, Sam beat me at poker. That’s why he gets you as best man,” Riley said. “We totally battled it out for you, dude. Now I have to ask my brother to stand next to me on the happiest day of my life. My brother.”

Steve laughed, despite himself. Riley’s brother was a 22-year-old frat boy, who was repeating his senior year of college for the third time. Next to him, Steve looked like a saint. Steve repeated this to Riley, expecting a laugh. But Riley only sighed.

“You’re the best guy I know Steve,” Riley said. And then he tightened his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Besides this one.” He paused, staring just over Steve’s shoulder. “You deserve better than what you got.”

After Riley roused Sam and they left to find a cab, both a little smiley, a little tipsy, clinging to each other as they meandered out Steve’s front door, Steve sat on his tiny balcony, staring out over the city.

He tried to believe Riley. He really truly tried.

+

The next day’s appointment was a little easier.

Steve got four hours of sleep the night before, which was four hours more than he’d gotten before his first appointment. When he worked out that morning he kept it light enough that he managed to drag himself to his couch before he collapsed into an exhausted heap. After he took a shower and got dressed, he checked the clock this time and found things to keep him busy before he had to leave. So he wouldn’t show up absurdly early.

He played with Cap. He had a little plastic airplane tied to the end of what had been a pointer. Cap enjoyed trying to grab the little plane with her claws, and when she did manage to grab it she would settle it between her teeth and prance around the entire house, like she was captaining her own flight.

After, he received a food delivery and signed the little slip the delivery woman slid under his door. He waited for her to leave before bringing the food inside. He unpacked eggs and milk and boxes of mac and cheese while Cap tried her best to defeat the paper bag the food had come in, in an all out death match. Cap won.

Steve cleaned up after her, as he did almost every time he got a food delivery. And then made himself some leftover curry to eat before he had to leave.

He headed out at 2:30, rather proud that he’d managed to distract himself for a good portion of the day.

He was about halfway there when he reached the traffic jam. Yesterday, he’d left hours before he should have, when most people in town were at work or school. At 2:30 on a Wednesday everybody in town seemed to be out at once.

Steve came to a crowded intersection. Students, businessmen, and businesswomen clogged the street, closing him in on all sides. Their approach and eventual entrapment had happened so gradually that by the time Steve realized he was surrounded in the middle of the sidewalk there wasn’t much he could do about it. Just then, as Steve was trying to find a way out, his heartbeat increasing with every direction he turned, a song he definitely did not need right now came on autoplay on his iPod.

He went from the upbeat overtures of Imagine Dragons to Katy Perry crooning about being touched, being afraid, being a victim. The unwanted lyrics ground against his eardrums, sending his pulse throbbing through his skull to the beat of the song. Too fast, too uneven. He wanted to get into a defensive position, crouch on the ground, wait until everyone went away. He also wanted to run. He also wanted his shield.

_Where was his shield?_

+

**  
**“Shield? Steve, what are you talking about?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Katy Perry's "E.T." is mentioned briefly at the end of this chapter.  
> TW: Beginnings of a panic attack described at the end of this chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Steve is not in a good headspace for most of this chapter. A more detailed warning is in the end notes, for reference.
> 
> I /promise/ that the next couple of chapters are happy. This just needed to happen before Steve can get to any kind of progress. That being said please heed the warnings for this chapter. I hope to update this more frequently in the future, this chapter was just absolutely exhausting to write.
> 
> Also, there is a surprise character in this chapter, that is entirely the fault of my friend Joanna. Who made a really excellent argument, as always. She also helped me realize this fic is probably going to be much longer than I thought. Oops.

Steve came back to himself one sense at a time.

 

First, hearing. He could hear someone’s voice. Someone familiar, someone safe.

 

When his sense of touch came back he felt flat hands on his shoulders, smoothing over his jacket. The hands were attached to the voice and Steve felt his limbs begin to slowly unwind from how he’d been curled on himself. There was something hard at his back, something cold clutched to his chest.

 

Steve smelled trash. And from the thrum of the traffic in the distance, he guessed he was in an alley, against a wall, beside an industrial wastebin.

 

Sure enough when he opened his eyes he was exactly where he’d thought he was. Just unsure of how he’d gotten there. A few feet away an older woman stood with her phone in her hand, appraising him worriedly. Crouched in front of him was Bucky.

 

Steve blanched when he noticed Buck. He was wearing a leather jacket today, his hair falling out of his ponytail, into his face. His eyes were boring into Steve’s, trying to see if he was okay. Steve wasn’t okay. He didn’t know what had happened, but whatever it had been he could have handled it alone. And now Bucky was here and he’d seen everything and he was going to think Steve couldn’t handle himself. That he was weak and broken and a burden.

 

To Steve’s horror he could feel and see tears welling. His vision started to swim. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to stop them from falling and make him look even more ridiculous, but they fell anyway, skating down his cheeks and dripping off his chin. Like he was five.

 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Bucky said, moving to sit beside Steve, among the trash and grime. He slung his prosthetic around Steve’s shoulders and pushed Steve’s head to rest against his chest.

 

Bucky looked up at the woman who was still standing there, looking on the verge of tears herself. “I can take it from here, Ma’am. Thank you for calling the V.A.”

 

“It’s no problem,” the woman said, smiling warily. “My sister was in Vietnam. She— Do you need a ride anywhere, sweetheart?”

 

Bucky shook his head, told her they were fine. As the woman left the alley she glanced back at them a few times, like she might turn around. But she didn’t. And Steve was ashamed of it, but he was glad she was gone.

 

The tears were drying on his cheeks, leaving his skin tight and dry. When he went to wipe them on his sleeve he realized he couldn’t move his hands. His fingers were curled and white around the handle of a metal trashcan lid, that he was using to cover himself. Like a shield.

 

Bucky reached over and massaged Steve’s fingers loose. Until the lid fell to the ground in front of them with a clang that seemed to echo for a long time.

 

Steve sat up straight, wiping at his eyes. Music still bled from his earbuds even though they hung around his neck. He turned off his iPod and the silence that followed was jarring.

 

Licking his lips and keeping his eyes focused on the brick wall across the alley, Steve said, “How long?”

 

Bucky pulled away from him. Tucking his hands into his pocket and leaning back.

 

“I got here ten minutes ago.”

 

“Did I hurt anybody?” Steve asked, and the words felt heavy on his tongue. He was pretty sure the answer might choke the little air he had left straight from his lungs.

 

“No,” Bucky said, firmly. “That lady was smart, called the V.A. I picked up and came straight here.” When Steve looked at him, eyebrow raised and unimpressed, he elaborated. “She said you just pushed out of the crowd at the intersection, grabbed the lid off the trashcan, and hunkered down. Didn’t say a word until I got here.”

 

Steve frowned. He didn’t remember speaking. But he didn’t remember much of anything.

 

“What did I say?”

 

“I don’t know, exactly. Something about how you needed your shield? I couldn’t understand it Steve.” Bucky hesitated. “Do you?”

 

Steve shook his head. “No. I’ve never had a shield.”

 

“Okay,” Bucky said, agreeably.

 

They sat in silence for awhile, with Bucky breathing in a deep steady rhythm that Steve mimicked unconsciously. Steve began to suspect that Bucky was doing it on purpose, making his breathing louder and patterned so Steve would follow his lead, but Steve was too tired to care about something like that at the moment.

 

Eventually, Bucky shifted to look him in the eye.

 

“What do you want to do, Steve?” Bucky asked. “We’ll do whatever you want to do.”

 

Steve could see the options in Bucky’s eyes. He could go with Bucky to the V.A. and talk with Natasha. She probably knew what had happened to him, she could teach him how to prevent it from happening again. On the other hand, he could go back to his apartment, where he had his bed and his treadmill and Cap. Cap who was probably curled under the coffee table, waiting for dinner, waiting for Steve.

 

Steve felt more tears collecting in his eyes and he put a hand over his face. When he looked back up again his fingers were wet and Bucky’s expression hadn’t changed. He didn’t look disgusted or bothered or like Steve had interrupted his entire day.

 

He looked patient and kind. Like he’d wait for hours for Steve to respond and wouldn’t think twice about it. That thought nearly made Steve cry all over again, and he was pretty much done with crying for the day thank you.

 

So Steve took a deep breath and said, “I’d really like to go home.”

 

And Bucky nodded and said, “Sure, pal.”

 

Bucky let Steve lean on him the whole way to Steve’s apartment building, made sure he got up the stairs, and through his front door, and into bed. When he ruffled Steve’s hair and made Steve promise to call him when he woke up, Steve mildly wondered as he sank into a deep, deep sleep how he’d manage to do that if when he woke Bucky had already left the V.A. for the day.

 

But he woke up at 10 p.m. to Bucky’s number scrawled on a napkin on his nightstand, along with a bottle of water, Advil, and 12 missed calls from Sam. Despite himself, Steve smiled.

 

+

 

Steve woke up long enough to call Bucky and assure him he was fine, he was making dinner. He called Sam back second mostly because he knew Sam was not going to let him hang up for a good while.

 

Sam kept him on the phone for nearly an hour, most of which was spent ensuring Sam that he didn’t need to come over.

 

Steve was fine. Steve was going to eat something and then go back to sleep. Steve could take care of himself.

 

Steve did not convince Sam of any of these things. But Sam hung up with the promise that he could come over first thing in the morning and this satisfied him enough to leave Steve be for the night.

 

Contrary to what he’d told both Bucky and Sam, Steve did not make dinner. Every time Steve thought of making food his stomach tightened into a knot so painful he could barely stand. So Steve made Cap dinner instead, took some Tums, and went to sleep.

 

He had all the usual nightmares.

 

+

 

The next day found Steve awake at 4:30 in the morning. He stared at his ceiling and wondered if the anxiety clawing at his stomach was entirely normal. He didn’t feel like moving in the slightest, and he didn’t have anywhere to be, so he just laid there, Cap curled against his side.

 

His ceiling consisted of white swirls of plaster and paint. It looked like how his insides felt.

 

Except for the center of his chest.

 

In the center of his chest, where his heart was meant to be, was a hole where Steve was certain he used to feel happiness. It was empty now and Steve didn’t know how to even begin to fill it. He couldn’t remember what it felt like to just _be_ happy, even though he knew he had been too many times to count.

 

And not only did Steve feel empty but he was frantically trying to piece himself back together, with pieces that didn’t even exist anymore. Until the emptiness, and the anxiety it had resulted in, were eating him alive.

 

All he could remember was how it felt to not feel anything, ever. All he could remember was how to look Sam in the eye and tell him, “I’m fine, I’m okay, I’m alright, don’t worry about me. It’ll be okay.”

 

Okay. Fine. Happy.

 

These were the only words Steve knew anymore.

 

Eventually, Steve mustered the energy to turn so Cap was cradled against his stomach. He closed his eyes, put his hands over his ears, and tried to go back to sleep. Usually when he woke up feeling like this, sleep helped. He’d sleep and he’d wake up fuzzy and unconcerned. He’d get on his treadmill and then take a shower and make breakfast and get a second start to his day.

 

This time, Steve closed his eyes and he couldn’t force himself back to sleep.

 

By 6 a.m. Cap had realized something was wrong. She stirred awake and stretched, long paws pushing into his thighs. Then she turned and bumped her cold nose against his cheek, as if asking why he was awake.

 

He didn’t know.

 

Cap pawed at him for a few more minutes before turning in a circle and bounding off the bed, in the direction of the kitchen. He could tell she was looking for food from the way he could hear her pushing her metal bowl back and forth over the tiles, like if she took her bowl on a long enough journey her breakfast would miraculously appear.

 

The noise stopped for just a moment, long enough for Steve to remember the concurrent emptiness and stress he was feeling. He was just sinking back into his mattress, the quiet roaring in his ears, when there was a loud crash from the kitchen.

 

The sound startled Steve from bed. He was up and out of his room before he could even really contemplate it.

 

In the kitchen, Cap was sitting on the counter, the picture of innocence. The cabinet he kept her food in was wide open and the plastic container that contained her dry food was on the floor. The container had fallen on its lid, so none of it had spilled into Cap’s bowl, which had coincidentally been placed on the floor at her feet.

 

Steve frowned and righted the container. He raised a single eyebrow at Cap and she just stared at him, as if to say, “This is what you get for not getting my breakfast.”

 

Steve sighed as he put food in her bowl. He sighed as he turned on his coffee machine and made a giant pot of black coffee. He sighed as he sat at his kitchen table with a mug in his hands, fingers shaking from the tension in his bones as he took sip after sip of bitter caffeine.

 

Sam would tell him not to drink coffee like this. Sam would take the mug from him and give him orange juice, make him eggs. From the sound of the buzzer going off downstairs, Steve could hear that Sam had arrived to do just that.

 

Sam was here at seven in the morning to help him get his life back together because he was the _best_ friend in the entire world, and Steve was shivering in his boxers as he drank coffee and tried to convince himself that standing and walking were things he could do. At that moment, the thought of getting up and buzzing Sam into the building, of even opening his front door, seemed to be monumental tasks that made Steve actually nauseous to consider.

 

So instead of considering them, he sat until the buzzing became more and more frantic and eventually stopped altogether.

 

Five minutes later, Cap scratching at his legs, there was a knock at his door.

 

“Steve? It’s your neighbor, Sharon Carter? There’s a guy downstairs, who says he’s your friend. Sam?” Sharon explained, her voice pitched to be heard through the door. “I wanted to make sure before I let him in the building.”

 

There was so much to say that he couldn’t decide what to say first, so Steve said nothing at all.

 

“Steve?” Sharon knocked again.

 

It took Steve a few moments to stand. When he did it was with soft, hesitant footsteps, as if he wasn’t approaching his front door at all, but a grenade. Actually, that wasn’t true. Steve had been braver around grenades.

 

He put both hands against the frame as he peered through the peephole, and sure enough there was his neighbor, Sharon. Steve knew what she looked like from the numerous times he’d seen her come in the building from his window or porch. She was in her nurses uniform, the fabric rumpled and stained like she’d just gotten home from the nightshift. Which she probably had.

 

Through the warped circular glass he could see that she was pacing in front of his door and biting her lip like she was trying to decide what to do. When Steve knocked back she startled but then seemed almost relieved. She stared back at him through the peephole.

 

“Steve?”

 

“Yeah, um, Ms. Carter. It’s me.”

 

“Oh, please,” Sharon rolled her eyes. “Call me, Sharon.”

 

Steve was quiet then, resting his hands, palms flat, against the door. He was pretty sure it was the only thing keeping him standing.

 

“Steve? Are you okay? Do you want me to get your friend?”

 

Steve could hear his phone then, even though it was on the nightstand in his bedroom. He wasn’t sure how long it had been ringing but just as the ringtone stopped it started up again, as if whoever was calling him was doing it over and over. So, Sam.

 

“Um, I’m fine,” Steve said, wincing at how unconvincing his voice sounded as it cracked around the lie. “Please. Could you just tell him to go home? I’m okay. I’m sorry to bother you.”

 

Sharon frowned. “Are you sure? He sounded worried. I think—”

 

She was interrupted by the sound of someone bounding up the stairs.

 

“Steve,” Sam said as he came into view of the peephole. He was sweaty and seemed panicked, his face and voice laced with worry.

 

Steve could feel his heart as it beat a painful staccato rhythm into his ribs. _You did this_ , he thought. _You did this. You did this. Look what you did._

 

“Steve!” Sam said again, standing next to Sharon and putting his hands on the door. He didn’t even seem to see that Sharon was there, and the peculiarity of Sam being impolite was jarring enough for Steve to realize that Sam thought that something was really, really wrong.

 

You’re _really wrong_ , he thought. _Just look at you. Can’t even open a door for your best friend._

 

“Steve are you okay?” Sam asked, fingers tapping a distraught pattern on the door. “Talk to me.”

 

“Sam,” Steve said, letting his forehead rest above the peephole.

 

Sam seemed to deflate a tiny bit, at hearing him.

 

“Steve, what’s going on, man? You really scared me.”

 

“I know,” Steve said, and again, for the second time in two days, he felt on the verge of crying. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so humiliated.

 

“I’ll give you two some privacy,” Sharon said, as she tried to discreetly walk back to her apartment.

 

“Actually,” Sam said, turning to her. “Could you do me a favor?”

 

Sharon agreed immediately and she called the number Sam gave her. She took the call from the other end of the hallway, Steve could barely make out what she was saying.

 

Sam distracted him by asking him questions.

 

“I’m fine,” Steve tried to reassure him.

 

“Bullshit,” Sam said. “I’ve been letting you get away with that for too long. You’re not fine, Steve. You’ve been through a lot of shit and you need help. There is no shame in that.”

 

“I know,” Steve said. He did. If it was Sam or Riley, and it had been Sam and Riley, once, he would insist they see a specialist. Demand they take care of themselves. But it was so very different when it was him that needed help. There was a bitter disgust welling in his stomach, shrieking that he shouldn’t be bothering other people with his own problems, that he was a nuisance and a bother and not worth any of their time, and he knew it wasn’t right. He knew that. But it was hard not to listen when the feeling was so loud, so convincing, so final.

 

A part of him.

 

“Sam, I can’t open the door,” Steve admitted.

 

“I know,” Sam said. “But I’m right here. I’m not gonna leave you.”

 

“Sam,” Steve said, and he was crying now. No, sobbing. He wiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand but his face was still wet. That bitter disgust in his stomach was racking his chest as it burst out of him. He cried for a long time, one hand on the door jamb to steady himself.

 

Sam just stood there, feet away, eyes closed, hand on the doorknob. He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t leave either.

 

When Natasha got there, Bucky was at her heels. Sharon had disappeared inside her apartment awhile ago, but when they came striding down the hall Steve realized that she’d probably been the one to let them in. He could see her peeking out of her doorway, could vaguely hear her asking if they wanted anything to drink. They both shook their heads, Natasha shook Sharon’s hand, looked like she was thanking Sharon for calling her.

 

Sam turned and blocked Steve’s view. He said something to Natasha that Steve couldn’t hear, but he didn’t go far.

 

When Sam turned to look Natasha in the eye, Bucky was right there, over Sam’s shoulder. He was wearing a shirt that looked straight out of a comic book. On it was a woman wearing a tight black uniform and holding a gun. Her hair was red. The caption said: Fight like a girl.

 

Despite the cool shirt and the black skinny jeans Bucky seemed frazzled. His hair was pulled back into a bun and he had both hands shoved in his pockets, when he went to pull the prosthetic out two of the panels got stuck on a seam. He spent an aggravated moment yanking it free. It was cute. It almost made Steve laugh, but he not only thought that might be rude but he wasn’t sure his body was physically capable of laughing at the moment.

 

“Steve,” Sam said, immediately drawing Steve’s attention. “Natasha is going to talk to you for a bit, but I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be in Sharon’s apartment with Bucky, but tell Natasha if you want me, okay?”

 

Steve nodded, before remembering there was still a door between them.

 

“Okay,” he said.

 

Sam nodded and patted the door twice before disappearing with Bucky into Sharon’s place.

 

Steve got to wonder what they were going to talk about in there, got to anxiously consider them talking about him, for about two seconds before Natasha stepped in front of the peephole and took up all of Steve’s attention.

 

“So, what’s up?”

 

This time, Steve did laugh. It was a wet sound and felt more like coughing than amusement, but he managed it.

 

“I’m—” Steve said.

 

“And don’t lie,” Natasha added. “If it helps, tell me how you’re feeling like you’re reading off a grocery list. You don’t have to give me details just give me basics. We can work from there.”

 

“Alright,” Steve said. And he did.

 

He told her about the voice in his head, how guilty he felt, how worthless. He told her about his anxiety and how much trouble he’d had sleeping and then getting out of bed. He told her about Cap and Sharon and Sam and how the idea of opening the door right now actually pained him.

 

Natasha listened, said, “Yes,” “Okay,” “Continue,” and “And?” She asked “And?” a lot. Steve had to elaborate a lot. But they got into a rhythm of Steve confessing and Natasha comprehending that made the time slide by, until it had been nearly an hour and Steve’s heart rate had slowed considerably, and the thought of unlocking his door didn’t leave him entirely terrified.

 

“I think that’s enough for today,” Natasha said, when Steve had gone quiet. “Do you feel tired?”

 

“Yes,” Steve said.

 

“You would,” Natasha said. “Take a nap and then eat something. When you wake up I want you to call me or Sam, check in. Do you want any of us to stay?”

 

“No,” Steve said in a rush. “I don’t want to put you out—”

 

“This is my job Steve. I’ll ask again, do you want me to stay?”

 

“No,” Steve said. “I’d feel better if you went home.”

 

“Okay,” Natasha said. “I’ll get Sam for you.”

 

When Sam came back, Bucky and Natasha hovered around Sharon’s door.

 

“How’s it going in there?” Sam asked, a tired smile on his lips.

 

“Better,” Steve said, honestly.

 

“That’s really good,” Sam said, he looked at the floor instead of staring at the peephole. “That’s— Listen. Steve. I’m going to tell you this and I’m going to tell you again and again, every time we see each other until it sticks, okay?”

 

Steve nodded, but before he could say anything Sam continued.

 

“I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re my best friend and the thought of something happening to you without me there to help? It terrifies me,” Sam paused, his eyes fixed on Steve’s even with the glass and wood separating them. “It _terrifies_ me.” Sam repeated. “It— My heart almost gave out today, man. I don’t want you to ever think that letting me in is going to bother me.”

 

Steve could remember when he first met Sam. He could remember dating Sam and missions with Sam and making breakfast with Sam and bar-hopping with Sam on leave. But right then, in that moment, he mostly remembered when they first met.

 

He was running around base, doing his own morning run before the required morning run he’d have to do with his squad. And Sam had been jogging. It had turned into kind of a competition. Which Sam lost.

 

In the end, Steve had come over while Sam was laying on the ground, panting. He’d helped him up and was about to apologize because he thought Sam would be mad, a lot of guys he’d met on base got mad when their egos were bruised, but Sam just smiled a wide friendly smile. And made fun of him, pushing Steve’s buttons until Steve teased back.

 

And now Sam was standing on the other side of the door, telling him in no uncertain terms that nothing Steve could do would hurt him, would put him out of his way, would bother him. He was there, running alongside Steve, a little to the left and a little behind, because Steve had always been the faster runner, but they were going in the same direction.

 

It was in this moment that for the first time, Steve truly believed him.

 

+

 

Saying goodbye to Sam was hard because Sam seemed to be taking his metaphorical “I’m not leaving,” pretty literally. Natasha had to drag him away with promises of phone calls and a morning visit, whether or not Steve had decided to let him inside.

 

When Sam and Natasha left, Steve turned and pressed his back against the door, exhausted.

 

It wasn’t until Bucky said his name that Steve realized he was still there.

 

He turned again and Bucky was standing, fists curled in his pockets, hair falling in his face. He looked beautiful. Even through the peephole. Steve wanted to draw the set of his shoulders, and he hadn’t felt the urge to draw in years.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Bucky said.

 

“Okay,” Steve said, perplexed. “Thanks, Buck.”

 

Bucky nodded and left and it wasn’t until he’d turned the corner to the stairwell that Steve looked away again.

 

He slid to the floor, back braced by his front door and closed his eyes.

 

+

 

It had been a long fucking day. It was only one in the afternoon.

 

+

 

Later, when Steve woke up, it was dark outside. He’d made it to bed before he passed out for good and the covers were bunched around his shoulders. He pushed them down and his bedside clock blinked back at him.

 

It was nearly eleven.

 

He felt better. He felt so much better that he got up and made dinner without anything churning his stomach. And when he ate beside Cap while she ate her cat food, he felt almost deliriously capable of doing whatever he put his mind to.

 

He put on sweatpants and a clean t-shirt, washed his face, and even ran a comb through his hair.

 

When he heard Sharon’s door open and close at the end of the hall, he knew exactly where she was headed. She’d had a night shift last night, probably in the ER. She was probably doing a load of laundry in the laundry room in the basement.

 

He stood and unlocked his door before he could question his actions. Sharon looked startled when he cracked it open. She turned to face him.

 

“Hey,” Steve said.

 

“Hey,” Sharon said, smiling. She had a laundry basket full to the brim with clothes in her arms.

 

Steve opened the door a little wider.

 

“I felt like I should thank you for earlier,” Steve said, hand on the back of his neck.

 

“Oh, not a problem at all,” Sharon said, her smile getting wider, sweeter. “How are you feeling?”

 

“Better. And. Well, I was thinking that if you don’t want to go all the way downstairs you could use my washer/dryer. If you want,” Steve was quick to add. He didn’t want to make her feel obligated or uncomfortable.

 

“As long as you don’t mind that I just did a round in the children’s ward and that most of this stuff is covered in puke, then sure.” She paused. “But what’ll it cost me?”

 

“A cup of coffee?” Steve offered.

 

Sharon smiled again, already walking towards him. “Sounds perfect.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Steve dealing with depression, anxiety, and agoraphobia, pretty graphically. Also, lots of discussion of his own thoughts of his low self-worth.
> 
> Please let me know if I missed anything in regards to tags/warnings.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much has happened since I put up the last chapter that I could probably write a novel about the last month of my life alone. I officially graduated from college! And that's not even the worst of it.
> 
> And yet, somehow I managed to write this mostly happy chapter!! It's amazing. Not the chapter but my tenacity. I will probably edit it some more after work. Yeah I'm posting this from work, oops. 
> 
> I set up some characters in this chapter that Steve doesn't really know well yet, so his descriptions of them are like, gonna change. JSYK. I hope you guys enjoy!

The next day was a Friday which meant Sam should have had work. Instead, he was at Steve’s building at seven in the morning, leaning on the doorbell. Steve tried and failed not to shake his head fondly as he buzzed him in.

Steve and Sharon had talked until well after midnight, ignoring the fact that her laundry was washed and dried and waiting to be folded. It turned out Sharon hadn’t always been a nurse. She had been working at a nearby hospital for almost the same amount of time Steve had been back stateside. Before that she had a profession that she, apparently, was not at liberty to reveal.

Besides the secrecy, Sharon had proved to be someone Steve would be honored to call a friend.

It didn’t hurt that she hadn’t been averse to gossipping about how blue Bucky’s eyes were. And she’d also told him all the details of the time Bucky and Sam had spent in her apartment, while Steve was talking to Natasha. Whether or not they’d discussed Steve was still something Sharon could have left out of her retelling, but it sounded like they’d spent almost all their time watching Sam stress-bake three dozen peanut butter cookies. And then spent the remainder watching Bucky stress-eat nearly all three dozen.

So that was a relief.

But not as big a relief, it seemed, that Sam felt, when Steve opened his front door for him.

Steve swung the door open without waiting for Sam to knock, and Sam had raised his hand to to do just that. He just about knocked Steve on the nose when, barely missing a beat, he yanked Steve into a hug. Winding his arms around Steve’s neck and patting his shoulders as if to make sure he was still in one piece.

When he pulled back his face was crumpling, like he might cry.

“Do you want coffee?” Steve said.

“Yes, you asshole, I want coffee,” Sam said, pushing his way inside.

Over Sam’s shoulder, Sharon was locking her front door. She was in uniform, sunglasses perched on her nose, a cup of tea in her free hand, headed for work. She smiled at Steve and gave him a thumbs up after she tucked her keys into her purse. Steve nodded and smiled and said, “Good morning.”

It was the lightest he’d felt in a long time.

+

“Riley wanted to come too,” Sam said. He’d made breakfast out of what little Steve had in his fridge. So, eggs, bacon, dry toast, and giant cups of coffee.

Cap kept making all these mewling noises like they’d neglected to feed her, but she’d eaten breakfast not twenty minutes ago and was actually scrounging for seconds. Or thirds, seeing as Sam had snuck her some of his scrambled eggs. The little glutton.

“But I didn’t want to, you know, overwhelm you or anything,” Sam said. He was drinking his coffee like he’d been parched for days.

Steve watched with wide eyes, wondering if he should say something about the effects of large amounts of caffeine on the cardiovascular system. Or maybe get Sam a caffeine patch. Instead he took a sip of his coffee and pretended he hadn’t seen anything. He figured, after yesterday, Sam deserved as much coffee as he wanted.

“That’s fine,” Steve said. “I’m o—”

As if he had trained his ears for even the smallest hint of an “okay,” Sam’s head whipped up, his eyes narrowed.

“I’m better.” Steve amended.  

“Good,” Sam said. “Because I couldn’t keep him away for long. He’s gonna drop by the V.A. after work and go shopping with us.”

“Shopping?” Steve asked, the tension already lining his shoulders. He hadn’t been shopping in a store, for anything, for even longer than he’d been back from his last tour. Besides his apartment, the last thing he hadn’t bought online had been a toothbrush in Afghanistan.

Sam must have recognized the beginning signs of reluctance, because he quickly added, “Shopping for the wedding. We have an appointment to taste test cake. It’s in a private dining room.”

Steve’s arms drooped into his lap. He felt kind of silly. He should have known Sam wouldn’t have thrown him into a situation he’d be uncomfortable in, especially after yesterday.

Sam, for all his awareness, seemed to be purely and utterly functioning on coffee alone at the point in time. He didn’t notice the way Steve threw him an apologetic smile, only uncontrollably jiggled his leg against the kitchen table, until he decided to get up and attempt to clean Steve’s entire kitchen single-handedly.

When he’d finished cleaning all of the dishes, washed the counter and the table, and windexed all of Steve’s kitchen appliances, Sam tried to pull out Steve’s vacuum cleaner. At which point Steve suggested they take a walk.

“Good idea,” Sam said. “We should get to your appointment early.”

Steve looked at the clock. “It’s nine in the morning.”

“Natasha’s seeing you early from now on,” Sam explained.

Steve couldn’t tell if this was something Natasha had wanted or something that Sam had decided on right then and there, either way he needed to get Sam out of the house before he started reupholstering Steve’s couch or something. And, frankly, Steve needed to get out while he was still feeling up for it.

Cap bumped her nose against his ankle so Steve reached down and scratched her ears. Then left before he could talk himself out of opening his front door.

+

An hour later Steve sat in the V.A. waiting room, being glared at by a five year old.

When he’d arrived with Sam fifteen minutes ago, Bucky had been nowhere in sight, and there hadn’t been any other patients waiting. Sam had, after a futile protest from Steve, left to get them more coffee. And Steve had been sitting alone with a wide selection of model airplane magazines for exactly ten of those minutes, until a small girl with dark hair and pigtails had poked her head over the counter.

Steve figured she was kneeling on Bucky’s desk, all he could see of her were her purple plastic heart scrunchies and sharp eyes.

The extent of interaction he’d had with children had been with Gabe’s son, Triplett. And he hadn’t seen Triplett in half a year. Trip had been an easy kid to please. He’d crawl right into Steve’s lap and show off his toy cars. Sometimes he’d demand Steve swing him from his biceps and Steve would give in with one look at those big brown eyes.

This girl seemed to be an entirely different case. Steve sighed, she was a kid, she had to be mostly harmless. He wondered if she was Bucky’s. The way her little features were scrunched and her air of menace seemed fairly similar. Either way, Steve was fairly sure she wasn’t going to make the first move.

“Um,” Steve said. “Hello?”

If possible, the girl glared even harder. As if she was trying to vaporize him with the force of her disapproval. Then, to Steve’s astonishment, she produced a Nerf gun from behind the counter and began to efficiently pelt him with foam ammunition.

Steve sat quietly, hands on his knees, as the sticky foam slugs hit him one by one and then bounced to the floor.

When she was done shooting the girl dropped back behind the counter. A moment later she peeked over again, as if to make sure he was still alive. When he was, she made a sound of frustration that could have been mistaken for a squeak, and raised an even larger Nerf gun.

“Katie!” Bucky said as he strode into the room. He plucked the girl off the counter and pried the gun from her hands.

Crisis averted, Steve thought with a smile.

“I am so sorry Steve, she’s a terror with these things,” Bucky apologized, setting the girl on the ground a few feet from Steve’s chair. Buck placed his metal hand on the crown of Katie’s head and gently tugged until she looked Steve in the eye. “Apologize, Kate.”

Katie/Kate stared at him for a moment. When she wasn’t glaring, her eyes were very intelligent. They seemed too old for her little body.

“I’m sorry,” Katie/Kate said.

“It’s no problem,” Steve said, smiling. “I think I’ll survive.” He held out his hand to her. “I’m Steve, It’s nice to meet you.”

When she shook his hand, Steve caught the glimpse of a devious smirk. This kid was definitely a handful. Maybe even two or three handfuls.

“Kate Bishop,” she said, chin held high.

“I see,” Steve said. He looked up at Bucky. “Is she yours?”

Bucky didn’t seem very ruffled by the suggestion, even as he shook his head. “Nah, she’s—”

“Where’s my little slugger—”

“Clint!” Bucky snapped, as an unfamiliar man rounded the corner.

The man was fairly average looking. Average height and average build, with ruffled blond hair and a crooked smile. A smile that fell right off his face when he caught sight of Bucky. He raised his hands in a placating gesture.

“Whoa, man. I didn’t do it.”

“You didn’t leave Kate alone at my desk so she could attack our patients, while you made out with your wife during work hours?”

The man frowned. “Okay. That was me. But in my defense, it was Nat’s idea.”

Bucky glared.

“It was...half Nat’s idea?”

Bucky pointed at Steve, where he was still sitting with his hands folded in his lap, resembling less and less the seasoned commanding officer he was and more and more an unsuspecting deer caught in the headlights.

“Apologize to Steve,” Bucky said.

“Sorry, man,” Clint said. He reached down to pick up his daughter and Kate’s little arms automatically wrapped around his neck. “I promise not to leave my kid in a position to terrorize you from now on.”

“And you’ll stop letting her bring her Nerf guns to the office.” Bucky supplied.

“But—” Clint started.

“Hey—” Kate yelped. She whipped to look at Bucky and her pigtails smacked Clint in the face.

Bucky silenced any protests with the crack of his knuckles, both metal and flesh. It was really impressive. And really, oddly, hot. Steve was glad he was sitting because his knees felt a little weak.

“I promise,” Clint said, looking mollified as he spit Kate’s hair out of his mouth.

“Good,” Bucky said.

And, of course, Sam chose then to return. Two large black ice coffees in hand, both of which he seemed to be drinking. He looked at Bucky, Clint, Kate, and Steve, his eyeballs pinging between them with the twitchy buzz of too much caffeine.

His shoulders fell. “I missed something, didn’t I?”

+

Steve had a good appointment. He felt refreshed after talking to Natasha. He knew, technically, Natasha wasn’t allowed to talk about personal business during his sessions, but before and after they’d chatted about Kate.

Despite the kid’s apparent dislike of him, Steve had taken a shine to her. It was hard not to. She was adorable. In a deadly way.

During this appointment, Natasha asked him how he felt about medication. Steve didn’t know. He wasn’t averse, but he still wanted to have a few more sessions to decide. Natasha told him that was fine, as long as he decided.

“In the meantime,” Natasha said, “you need to do things that make you happy. What makes you happy, Steve?”

In theory, Steve knew there were things he enjoyed. But in that moment he couldn’t think of a single one. The years stretched before him, a mindless expanse of nothing.

His brain tried to fill in the blanks for him, suggesting pancakes, movies, stargazing, sex. Steve couldn’t remember how those things had felt. Maybe he’d liked them at the time, maybe he’d been happy when they happened. But now all he saw were flashes of light, skin on sweaty skin. He used to like reading, he still read sometimes. But the words were empty. It was hard to imagine worlds of people inside his head when he could barely consider venturing into the one right outside his door.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“What did you do before the Army?” Natasha asked.

“I painted,” Steve said. “I wanted to be an artist.”

He had, but it had been so long since then. His hands were not the same hands that used to guide a paintbrush across a canvas. He felt as if the boy from Brooklyn who had wanted to paint, who was so sick all the time, who could barely run to the end of the block, that boy he used to be, his story was a story someone had told him once, years and years ago, and not his own.

+

By the time his appointment got out Sam seemed to have relaxed out of his caffeine binge. He smiled easily at Steve from where he leaned against the counter, chatting with Bucky. And Steve couldn’t help but feel relieved that he probably wouldn’t have to cut Sam off from Starbucks any time today.

In all the chaos from earlier, Steve had hardly noticed what Bucky was wearing. But now he could see he was wearing skinny jeans so tight they looked like they were painted on, and a slouchy sweater that was hanging off his metal shoulder. He had a pen tucked into his bun, holding it in place. Steve wanted to pick it out with his teeth.

He shook his head, but it was too late, he could feel his cheeks turning hot. He really hoped Bucky couldn’t read minds.

Even if he couldn’t though, Sam apparently could.

Once they’d said goodbye to Buck and started a casual route through the park toward where Riley was waiting for them, Sam went in for the kill.

“So. Bucky.”

Steve tripped on a rock. He ignored the fact that Sam was laughing his ass off and righted himself.

“Is it that obvious?” Steve mumbled.

“Dude, yeah, I would’ve noticed sooner if there hadn’t been so much going on.”

Steve sighed. He didn’t even know why he hadn’t told Sam yet. There had been a lot going on, but he usually told Sam everything. Maybe it was because it was a little embarrassing, talking about crushes. It was like he was back in middle school. But he had done it with Sharon and if anyone really deserved to know the details of Steve’s love life, it was probably Sam.

“You know how I ran away before my first appointment?”

Sam nodded.

“It was because I saw Buck behind the desk.” Steve confessed. “And my first thought was, like, ‘Holy shit, he’s fucking gorgeous, I can’t remember my name.’”

Sam stared ahead for a quiet moment, a fond smile on his face.

“That was pretty much what I thought the first time I saw Riley.”

Steve frowned. “You met Riley when you were, like, eight.”

Sam shrugged. “He was really pretty.” He added, “I can’t believe I’ve never told you this before. Basically, I’d just moved to D.C. and I had zero friends and I was playing at a park by myself and there he was, this stupid kid, standing on top of one of those tube slides? I yelled up at him, ‘You’re gonna die, you know,’ ‘cause he was trying to slide down the outside of the tube. Stupid, reckless idiot.”

“Did he make it?” Steve asked.

“No. He climbed halfway down and then he fell. Nearly cracked his fool head right open. I kneeled over him and he was sweaty and covered in blood and he just smiled at me. One of his teeth was missing. It was less ‘love at first sight’ and more ‘I need to protect this idiot’ at first sight.’” Sam looked Steve in the eye. “It was a damn good thing he had his looks.”

Steve nodded, like he understood. He did, but at the same time, he’d never understand the entirety of the shit Steve and Riley had been through together.

“Why don’t you invite him to the wedding?” Sam said.

“What?” Steve said, yanked from his thoughts.

“Bucky. Invite him to the wedding. You have a plus one you know.” Sam prodded.

“Oh,” Steve said, rubbing his neck. “I don’t know, Sam. I got a lot going on right now. I wouldn’t want to tie Bucky down with that kind of baggage.”

Sam stopped walking. Steve stopped a few steps later, confused, and turned around. Sam didn’t look angry, he didn’t look much of anything. His hands were in his pockets, his eyes were firm.

“You’re not baggage,” he said. “And you’re not the only one who’s been through this kind of thing. I’m sure Bucky has things that he’s working on too.”

Sam started walking again, fast, so Steve had to almost jog to keep up.

“None of us are perfect Steve. And there’s never a ‘right time.’ Riley and I got back together while in separate units, thousands of miles away from each other, both of us in war zones. But if we hadn’t, I would’ve regretted it for the rest of my life.” Sam said this and Steve remembered that day. He remembered the way Sam had grinned after he’d logged off Skype with Riley. He remembered the moonshine they’d drunk to celebrate. He remembered the hangover.

But for months after that Sam had had to go through some really rough shit. That tour had been bad. But at the end of the day he’d had Riley to write to, Riley to Skype with, Riley’s pictures to look at. They’d made each other stronger in places they’d needed strength, filled each others holes with bad puns and whispered ‘I love you’s,’ and Steve had watched all of that. Had seen it and wanted it for himself.

And Sam was right to call him out on denying himself something he’d wanted for a long time. He was working on his issues and he would be his entire life. There would always be something holding him back if he let it.

“Okay,” Steve said. “I’ll ask him. I promise.”

“Good,” Sam said, finally slowing down. “Now let’s go help my useless fiance pick out some damn cake.”

+

“I really like the vanilla,” Riley said, putting his fork down.

Sam threw his hands in the air. “You’re vanilla.”

Riley wrinkled his nose. “Is that a reference to my race or my sex—”

“O-kay,” Steve said. He was kind of proud of Riley. Normally, Steve would have been the one to make that joke and Riley would have watched the aftermath, but it seemed he’d learned a thing or two from watching Steve and was picking up the slack. Pride or no pride, however, they did have an audience. He looked up at the poor waiter, whose face was entirely flushed. “We’ll take the red velvet.”

The waiter, gratefully, scuttled away to place their wedding order.

Sam and Riley stared at Steve.

Steve shrugged.

“It has vanilla frosting for Mr. Vanilla over here. And red velvet is Sam’s favorite.”

“Thank god you’re here,” Riley said, taking another bite of his vanilla cake.

Sam rolled his eyes at his fiance and, the hypocrite, leaned over and smooched his cheek.

“Gross,” Steve said.

Sam frowned at Steve, and then grinned, deviously. “So, Riley, have I told you about Steve’s crush on the secretary at the V.A.?”

“No, you haven’t,” Riley said, mouth full of cake.

“Samuel Wilson—”

“He has big blue eyes. He wears skinny jeans.”

“Skinny jeans,” Riley said, fascinated. “Now how does his junk fit in there, you think?”

Steve groaned and put his head down on the table. He only just missed getting a face full of vanilla cake. Friends were the worst.

+

  
The next day Sam really had to go to work. He told Steve this the night before and in the morning when he called.

“I can swing by after though. And if you really don’t want to go alone, I can—”

“Sam.” Steve reassured him through the phone. “It’ll be fine. We found a quiet route through the park. Go to work, I’ll call you later.”

Steve left the apartment with anxiety thrumming through his fingers, he almost dropped his keys locking the door. But for once, the nerves weren’t because he was leaving his apartment or going to his appointment or venturing outside. They were because today he was going to ask Bucky on a date. A date-date.

He was almost entirely sure he was going to be turned down. And it wasn’t because he was being pessimistic, but, well, he was being pessimistic. Despite what Sam had said yesterday, he still felt like he wasn’t in a place where anybody would want to be in a relationship with him. He could barely maintain a relationship with himself.

That, and someone as gorgeous as Bucky was probably already taken. This thought left Steve feeling a little more hollow than before.

Still, even though he knew it was probably too soon to be proposing anything like he was about to propose to Bucky, Steve knew that if he didn’t let Bucky know where he stood and how he felt, he’d feel even worse. So he was approaching the V.A. at ten in the morning, almost entirely prepared to be rejected.

Which was why he was surprised when he opened the door to the waiting room and Bucky stood from behind his desk, and blurted, “Do you want to go out with me?”

Steve stared at him.

  
“Oh my god, I finally fucking said it,” Bucky said, looking relieved for all of two seconds. Then his eyes went wide, his mouth flopped open.

Before Steve could even try to respond, Bucky had grabbed his bag, ducked his head, and barrelled straight past him.

Steve was so stunned that for a moment he didn’t even think to follow. When he did, it was with a smile on his face, one that involved all his teeth, his dimples, and wrinkles wrinkling the corners of his eyes.

 ****  
So this was what it meant to be happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Steve, if only it were that easy. :'(
> 
> P.S. Happy Birthday Weekend Joanna :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE BEEN STARING AT THIS CHAPTER FOR AGES SO I'M JUST GONNA POST IT AND SEE HOW IT GOES. 
> 
> Also, hello there! I hope you guys like this chapter. And, as an aside, I would like to state that I know nothing about Washington D.C. and how to get places there and if there are quiet wooded areas, or whatnot, I figured I'd take artistic liberties with that aspect of the story and, because of that, I would like to make a formal apology to anyone that actually lives there. I know nothing and I am sorry.
> 
> Also, also, I'm sorry this chapter took so long. Many, many, many things have happened to me since the last update. BUT, looks like we're halfway done!! Whoo!!

It was an odd reverse of the events of their first meeting. Instead of Bucky chasing Steve, here was Bucky, running away after admitting to Steve that he wanted to date him. And here was Steve, chasing after Bucky so that he could say, “Yes, please, let’s date and make out and go to crowded places together, because I think I can take on anything as long I’m holding your hand.”

Unlike their first meeting, however, it didn’t take that long for them to reunite. Seeing as Bucky was doubled over at the edge of the V.A. parking lot, clutching his sides.

“I haven’t,” Bucky wheezed, “Run,” he coughed, “In six months.”

Steve stared at Bucky, his hair falling out of his customary bun and into his sweaty brow, skinny jeans slipping down his slim hips revealing red checkered boxers, the laces of his untied combat boots skimming the pavement, and he couldn’t help it. He laughed.

After ten seconds, Steve realized the sound coming out of him wasn’t even really laughter. It was a delirious bark of what had been a mix of anxiety and dread swimming in his stomach ever since he decided to ask Bucky on a date, that was now ejecting itself from between his lips as a sad excuse for amusement.

Bucky watched him. His expression unreadable. He was probably reconsidering ever having anything to do with Steve Rogers and planning his escape at that very moment, but Steve couldn’t bring himself to stop.

He collapsed into a heap on the ground, legs crossed under himself. Eventually his laughter abated and his lungs remembered how to breathe again and the tears that had welled in the corners of his eyes were wiped away. And he was left, on the ground, as Bucky crouched, arms tucked under his knees and squinted at him, like if he squinted hard enough he could decipher what was happening.

“Bucky,” Steve said, “I would love to go out with you.”

Bucky fell backwards. His butt hitting the ground with a soft thwack, his knees pressed to his chest by the unyielding grip of his arms. His eyes were very wide.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Bucky said. “I did not see that coming.”

“Why not?” Steve asked, genuinely confused. “You’ve been really nice to me.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“True,” Steve said. “Your ass helped.”

“Oh my _Jesus_ ,” Bucky said. His face flushing a previously unknown shade of pink. “Have you always been like this? Have I unleashed a monster?”

Steve smiled, wide and satisfied. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that most of him was still aching to get back to his apartment and lock the door, convinced that this was a lie or a cruel, distasteful joke. His brain seemed to be mostly adamant that Bucky was tricking him or actually hated him or didn’t need him. But there was a smaller part of his brain that was warm and satiated and remembered what it felt like to do this.

He reached across the space that separated him from Bucky and carefully entwined his fingers with Bucky’s metal ones.

“I guess you’ll find out soon enough.”

When Bucky spluttered and hid his face behind his other hand, Steve squeezed his fingers extra hard and added, in all seriousness, “Bucky, you have a _really_ nice ass.”

+

Steve made it to Sunday, his first day without a scheduled appointment, with no more setbacks. Over the past few days his meetings with Natasha had settled into an easy rhythm of give and take that had seemed impossible to him a week ago. And yet, Steve had now worked his visits to the V.A. into his everyday routine without letting the anxiety that came with leaving the house or divulging his darkest secrets to a virtual stranger, interfere with the rest of his life. Mostly.

In fact, Steve was almost disappointed that he didn’t have to go down to the V.A. that morning. But not really. Because today was his date with Bucky.

Which meant he was anxious for an entirely separate reason.

“Wear the blue one,” Sharon said, sitting back on Steve’s bed. She had one of his model airplane magazines open in her lap and Cap curled against her side as Steve emptied his sad and lacking wardrobe onto his comforter.

“Which blue one?” Steve asked. He had no less than six blue button-up shirts, all the same style and nearly the same color, that he’d salvaged from a discounted rack at Marshalls when he’d gotten back from his first tour.

“The sky blue, the one that matches your eyes.” Sharon instructed.

Steve picked up the shirt that he presumed matched her description and Sharon groaned like she was in tremendous pain. Cap was so startled by the sound of Sharon’s turmoil that she sprung from Sharon’s side and dashed under the bed.

“Are your eyes turquoise? No, they are not,” Sharon said. She grabbed the shirt next to the one he’d picked up and handed it to him.

“Wear the red tie and and light gray jeans,” Sharon said.

Steve did as he was told because he was still reeling in gratitude that Sharon was even here in the first place.

She’d been on her way back from a night shift in which she hadn’t slept in almost 48 hours, when she’d caught Steve trying to leave his apartment, not only three hours early for his date, but wearing a suit. A suit he had forgotten he owned in the first place. A suit he’d found in the back of his closet covered in mothballs. A suit he’d deemed worthy to wear on his first date with the man he was more than likely going to spend the rest of his poorly dressed life with. That last descriptor may have been more or less what a sleep-deprived Sharon Carter had snapped at him at seven in the morning before Steve had plied her into helping him with an entire pot of coffee and many, many bagels. At least three bagels.

So, two hours later, dressed in what Steve thought resembled a hipster American flag, and Sharon assured him was a very cute, muscular All-American look that would leave Bucky weak in the knees, Steve left Sharon passed out on his pillows in a nest of his clothes with his cat on her head, and went to meet Bucky.

He was still very early, but he had insisted that Bucky didn’t need to walk him to their date. That he could meet him there. And he was determined to get there with no incidents. He meandered down side streets and wooded paths until the Smithsonian came into view. It was not bustling with tourists on a chilly November morning, but there were people there. Steve kept to himself, tucking his bulk onto a bench far enough from the entrance that he was left alone.

He could feel his heart beating in his chest. The endless disastrous possibilities of how the day could go churning in his head as he sat fiddling with his phone.

He could trip and knock down an entire exhibit and the visitors and staff could quietly turn to look at him in horror. He could have another panic attack and wake up having hurt somebody, Bucky, a _child_. He could get stopped or bumped into or asked a question to which he didn’t know the answer and the shutters behind his eyelids could snap shut and he could retreat into himself, undoing days of tireless efforts to step out of his comfort zone. Or, possibly worse, Bucky could not show up at all. And Steve could be left here, wearing clothes he couldn’t ever remember wearing before, feeling small and clean and uncomfortable, on a bench in Washington D.C. Alone.

Or, Steve realized as he looked up, and Bucky was standing in front of him, staring down at him and frowning, none of those things could happen. This day could go perfectly fine. There was nothing to worry about.

“Steve?” Bucky said. He said it like it wasn’t the first time he was saying it.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Sorry, I was dozing off there.”

Bucky frowned at him but didn’t argue. When Steve stood up all arguments Bucky seemed to be mulling over flew right off his face, replaced by something pleased and wide-eyed. Bucky licked his lips, a delicate flush sweeping across the bridge of his nose.

“You look really swell,” Bucky said. And he was suddenly flushed everywhere. The color seeping past his neck and ears, turning his skin a ruddy red.

It was warm for November. Which meant Bucky was wearing dark washed jeans that clung to his legs and a flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows. His hair hung in soft, fluffy tufts around his face, like it’d just been washed, and Bucky pushed at it nervously, tucking it behind his ears. He was wearing a slim black tie.

“You look really swell too,” Steve said, smiling. “Is that what the kids are saying these days?”

“Oh geez,” Bucky said, grabbing Steve’s hand and tugging him towards the front of the museum. “Wait until we’re inside, at least.”

Steve laughed as he squeezed Bucky’s fingers. He stumbled on the steps but Bucky just tightened his grip and continued pulling him along.

+

“Is that a Supermarine Spitfire?” Steve tried to hide the excitement in his voice, but he was fairly sure by the way he was practically squeaking with glee that he failed.

“That’s what the sign says.” Bucky confirmed.

The plane was suspended from the ceiling, it's green shell gleaming in the mid-afternoon light. Steve had studied these planes in high school, coveted them in Basic, and had a figurine in his bunk overseas. The figurine was gone now, most of the things he owned were not old or sentimental, but scavenged from sales and army surplus stores between tours. But for most of his life he’d dreamt of flying a plane like this.

On good nights he literally dreamt of flying a plane like this. Of gliding through puffy clouds, parting them with rounded wings, and knowing that he never had to land. On bad nights he dreamt of falling and crashing and being crushed under thousands of pounds of warped metal.

But Steve didn’t say anything like that. Instead he said, “They used these in World War II.”

“Yeah, says here this one was donated by the Royal Air Force,” Bucky said. “Wonder if it still runs.”

Steve did too.

+

Bucky had chosen the perfect time for a visit to the Air and Space Museum. Being November there weren’t as many tourists to begin with and since it was early in the day there were even less. Also, since it was the weekend, school groups wouldn’t be around. And it was a Sunday, which meant most sane people were sleeping in, watching cartoons, and eating cereal out of popcorn bowls.

So it was just Steve, Bucky, and a building full of history. The few other visitors that were there gave them a generous berth. Steve couldn’t tell if it was because they were just being polite or if it was because they saw Bucky’s hand skimming Steve’s arm or shoulder and they were being _polite_.

Either way it suited him fine. It meant he was free to wander the museum with Bucky and get to learn about him and some awesome historical air and spacecrafts all at once. Twice the education smooshed into a relaxing stroll. Steve considered it quite the accomplishment.

He learned Bucky loved to dance, that he grew up in Brooklyn, that he was raised bilingual because his mother’s first language had been Romanian. He learned he liked pastrami and hated mayonnaise and that he considered being anything but a Mets fan barbaric. He learned that Bucky was still upset that he’d missed the premiere of the last Harry Potter movie because he’d been on a tour and that his favorite musical was _Rent_ and that he always held the door open for little old ladies without fail.

He learned Bucky’s fingers were alternately warm and soft or cool and smooth. He couldn’t decide which he liked better.

As the day wound on, more people began to crowd inside the museum. Steve was just explaining the mechanics of a prototype space shuttle to a fascinated Bucky, who didn’t entirely understand but was enraptured by science, when a teenager ran past Steve, nearly knocking him off his feet. As the kid dashed to an exhibit, shouting to his friends over his shoulder, an employee yelled at the kid not to run, while the kids friends yelled to wait up. But all Steve could hear was the odd rhythm of his heart.

He crossed his arms over his chest and hunched his shoulders. A cold sweat began to form on his forehead.

Bucky caught his eye and smiled, said, “I think its time for lunch.”

The idea of going up to a cash register and ordering food actually made Steve feel ill. Bucky must have noticed the green tinge to his skin, because he quickly shook his head.

“Not in a restaurant, I have a better idea,” Bucky said, winking.

The wink zinged down Steve’s spine and he shivered. He could only blink guilelessly in return as Bucky led him away from the museum, down the front steps and towards a patch of woods.

The further they got from people the more tension seeped from Steve’s bones. He relaxed his hand in Bucky’s tight grip.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked for food, but Sam told me you eat pretty much anything,” Bucky said.

He was leading Steve to a clearing off the wooded path Steve had walked earlier on his way to their date. He hadn’t noticed the clearing before. It was small and littered with fallen leaves, dotted with patches of light that bullied their way through the thick copse of tree branches. In the center was a pseudo picnic blanket that looked more like a worn afghan, and on the blanket was a cooler. Steve had been pretty inattentive lately, but he was pretty sure he would have noticed this set-up earlier, if only because the afghan was bright red, vibrant against its surroundings. He couldn’t for the life of him, begin to fathom how Bucky had managed this while he was touring the museum with Steve.

“Are there two of you? How did you do this?” Steve said, and then flushed. “I mean, it’s perfect, I can’t even— I just don’t—”

“Natasha,” Bucky supplied. “I may or may not owe her an unspecified favor, and I may or may not be living in constant terror at the very idea of that favor, but it was worth it. C’mon, I made us sandwiches.”

Bucky sat Steve on the afghan and then proceeded to procure nearly half a dozen different kinds of sandwiches, not to mention beers, tiny bags of chips and fruit, and a pitcher of hot chocolate from the cooler. It was like a bottomless pit of delicious food. If Steve hadn’t been halfway in love with Bucky already, this would’ve sealed the deal.

He moaned embarrassingly around the crust of a pastrami and rye sandwich and didn’t startle when Bucky nudged their legs together. It was just about the best date he’d ever had.

When they’d polished off the food and spilled most of the beer under the influence of a bizarre joke that had landed them both rolling around in the grass, giggling like children, they packed the cooler with their rubbage and the afghan and left it where they’d found it.

“Natasha will get it later,” Bucky said. “But don’t get used to the charity. I can only handle so much debt in my ledger.”

He slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders and they walked through the woods, meandering down strange paths and under twisty branches, talking about nothing at all.

And Steve felt happy. He kept thinking it and nearly saying it, but he couldn’t help it. He’d thought his body was done with happiness, that it had given up this feeling, all feelings, forever. He’d resigned himself to the fact that he was probably going to sit in his apartment with Cap every day for the rest of his life, running on his treadmill and eating food he ordered online, and watching the world change through his window while he remained entirely unmoved.

But then he’d found Bucky and he’d _wanted_ again and he was laughing as Buck walked into a low hanging branch. Now, everytime he smiled he tried not to imagine that it might be the last time, that he might go right back to the way he’d been only a week ago at any moment, from any trigger. It felt as if it had been so long.

He felt so far from where he started.

He felt tired.

Bucky was used to things like this, he could probably identify the fatigue lining Steve’s face, the strain slipping back into his frame.

“Hey, we should go,” Bucky said. “It’s getting late.”

Steve nodded. “Sure.”

They wandered into the street, thinking it would be easier to make their way back to the city that way. But when they emerged from the underbrush Steve looked up at a street sign and saw, with his heart sinking like a stone, that they’d walked miles from home. They were so very far away and Steve wanted to be back _now_. If they stayed out any longer, walked any farther, they’d have to see more strangers and remain outside where _it wasn’t safe, was never safe_ , and just as Steve thought he _might_ be able to handle that an eerie light flashed over their heads. And then thunder rumbled, somewhere, the sound so distant Steve barely even recognized it.

“Oh man, we should probably take cover or something,” Bucky said, grabbing Steve’s arm.

They were about to dash under the trees again, actually not a good idea, according to science, but the best idea they could come up with in the split second before freezing rain began pelting from the sky.

“I’m so so sorry.” Bucky kept saying. “I checked the weather. It was supposed to be sunny, nice—”

“It’s fine, you couldn’t have known.” Steve assured him. “We’ll just have to wait it out.”

They waited for five minutes. In which time they turned not only soaked but frozen, shivering in even their relatively thick November ensembles. Steve began regretting his tie and he loosened it, hoping to relieve the feeling that the world was caving in on him. He didn’t.

Bucky reached out and wound his arms around Steve’s waist just as Steve felt like he was about to shudder right out of his skin.

“You’re fine, we’re good, we’re totally warm and it’s sunny and it’s gonna be okay,” Bucky said.

Steve laughed as he pressed his forehead into the curve of Bucky’s shoulder.

“Sure, pal. Whatever you say.”

“I say it’s ninety degrees and we’re sipping martinis on a beach somewhere. I say we’re warm and sleepy and I’m working on my tan while you’re burning to a crisp.”

Steve scoffed, his breath warming the wet fabric of Bucky’s shirt.

“How’d you know I sunburn?”

Bucky pulled back a little and stared at Steve’s face. He looked almost fond, a little exasperated.

“ _Please_ ,” Bucky said, pinching his cheek. “You’re white and freckled, Steven Rogers.”

Before Steve could retort something undoubtedly ridiculous, a light lit up Bucky’s face. And it wasn’t his timeless beauty emanating from his skin or anything nearly that metaphorical. It wasn’t even more lightning.

It was headlights.

Bucky smiled, wide and relieved.

“It’s a taxi, Steve! Wow, that’s some luck.” He pulled away from Steve’s side and began flagging down the car, while Steve was left on the side of the road.

He remained still, his hands hanging by his sides, staring at the ground, eyebrows furrowed even though he was trying very hard to think of nothing at all.

The car screeched to a stop, the water on the road and the traction of the tires making a sound that resembled fingernails skimming a chalkboard. And then Bucky was speaking to the taxi driver, just loud enough that Steve probably could’ve listened if he tried.

All Steve could hear was the beating of his own heart in time with the engine of the car.

“Steve, he says he can take us into town. He’s headed that way anyway,” Bucky said. “Steve?”

_You can do this_ , his brain shouted at him. _Don’t slip. Don’t let him know. He’ll think you’re a freak._

__

Bucky gripped his arm with cold, slippery metal fingers, and Steve briefly considered that if Bucky could lose an arm and handle it then Steve could too.

_He’s had more time_ , the kinder part of Steve’s brain contributed.

“Steve?” Bucky asked, tightening his fingers.

And Steve was sick of making Buck worry about him.

“Yeah, sorry, sounds good,” Steve said, forcing himself to smile.

He would never know if Bucky actually believed his consent, only that one moment he was smiling and the next he was following Bucky into the car.

+

Later, when he had to explain it, Steve would say that one moment he was in the taxi and the engine was churning and Bucky’s thigh was pressing against his and the tires were bouncing over potholes and skidding against the curb. And Bucky was beside him. Bucky was talking but Steve didn’t know if it was to him or the taxi driver, just that his voice was soothing against the loud grating of the engine.

The next moment, Steve was still in the car, and the thing was still jolting forward but something was backfiring, something was exploding, the force of it threw Steve back against his seat. The next moment, Bucky was not beside him. Morita was.

Morita wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, just had the strap of his automatic slung over his shoulders, and was chewing avidly on sunflower seeds.

“Friggin’ Dum Dum, got the wrong damn seeds again,” Morita was saying, kicking the back of the driver’s seat.

“Hey!” Gabe shouted. His hands tightening around the wheel. “Don’t take it out on me.”

“Well then get Dum Dum inside the damn car,” Morita grumbled.

Hanging halfway out the sunroof, shooting something behind them, was Dum Dum. _Some_ one, Steve knew, inherently, somehow, _he’s shooting lots of some_ ones.

“Hey. Cap.” Falsworth said, from his other side. “You alright?”

“Cap?” Steve said, looking out the window. Outside the car the desert stretched forever. In all directions.

“Is this real?” Steve asked, looking down at his hands. He had a gun in one, a canteen in the other.

“Aw, man, I wish it wasn’t,” Gabe groaned from the front.

Dum Dum was still firing.

The desert stretched on and on.

The car went over a ditch and Morita dropped his sunflower seeds all over the floor.

  
Steve closed his eyes just before the car exploded.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was probably the easiest chapter for me to write because it’s, like, THE chapter. The reason I started writing this fic in the first place. I hope you guys enjoy it!! And please let me know if its confusing so I can make it so that it's not unintelligible. (I also apologize for any spelling errors. I am going to reread this later on, when my eyes are less exhausted, and do a final spell check. :))
> 
> ALSO please heed all the warnings in the tags and let me know if I missed any.

Someone was shaking Steve’s shoulder.

But the thing was, no one was actually shaking his shoulder. Steve was laying on his stomach in the sand next to Morita, who had a sniper’s rifle pointed at the insurgent’s base 300 yards away. They were covered in sand, wearing light camo, receiving their orders through their earpieces. Steve was laying as still as he could manage, because he didn’t want to be seen, didn’t want to blow their cover.

But his shoulder was sore and something about that seemed out of place. Steve remembered this mission, he remembered what happened next and an hour from now and tomorrow. When he was dreaming he always remembered every detail, in a way he never did when he was awake. He didn’t remember his shoulder being sore.

He grabbed at it, like maybe he could stop the ache that was spreading over his chest. It wasn’t an unpleasant pain, more like someone was patting Steve down, someone with fingers both warm and cool, soft and smooth. Steve didn’t dislike the feeling, but it was out of place. It didn’t belong here. He shoved it somewhere deep inside and willed himself to forget it was there.

“Captain America and Eagle Two in place and ready to commence phase one, over,” Morita said.

“It’s been years and I still don’t get why I’m Captain America,” Steve grumbled.

Morita turned his gaze from his scope to look at Steve. Even from under his helmet, Steve could tell his eyebrows were raised.

Morita winked. “Can’t you?”

“Over and out, Eagle Two. Commence phase one in three, two—”

“Shit,” Morita said, scrambling to toss the strap of his rifle over his back.

On “one” they crawled on all fours, as low as they could manage, toward the base. They reached the side window, undetected by the guard with the assault rifle walking up and down the roof, no doubt thanks to Gabe’s distraction at the front gate.

They broke the lock on the window and hefted themselves inside. They’d expected an office, maybe a meeting room. Maybe, if they were very unlucky, an occupied meeting room. The blueprints of the base they’d procured not two weeks ago revealed that there were two levels, six rooms on each level, and a high possibility of illegal and dangerous contraband on the premises.

That wasn’t what they got.

What they got was a classroom. A projector playing Snow White in English, a flustered teacher pressing rapidly on a small yellow button on the side of her desk before reaching for the gun in her hip holster, and twelve small desks with twelve small girls staring up at Morita and Steve indifferently—like this entire scenario was a test.

Steve looked at Morita just as Morita grabbed his rifle and shot the teacher in the chest. She went down loudly, bringing half her desk with her, leaving her blood smeared across papers it looked like she’d been grading.

None of the girls blinked.

“Are there more of you?” Steve asked them, snapping into action.

One of the girls, the one in front, tilted her head. She had short springy blonde curls. She reminded Steve of a ceramic doll.

“We are the only assets at this facility,” she said. Her voice was crisp, robotic.

Beside Steve, Morita shivered, but then went to check the hall to see if anyone was coming. From the crack of Morita’s rifle, two, four, five times, Steve guessed there had been.

On the projector Snow White was running from her Evil Stepmother, she ran into a cabinet with a loud clatter, then she turned, appearing helpless, a knife hidden in her clenched fist. Steve didn’t remember this part of the movie.

Morita shot the projector.

“Okay girls, we’re getting you out of here. Cap?”

“Right, follow Private Morita,” Steve ordered, hoping his voice wasn’t slipping into his “Captain” voice, hoping he wasn’t scaring them, hoping they could still be scared.

All at once, the girls got up and surged toward the door. They followed Morita into the hall, walking in a brisk single-file line.

Steve watched them leave, following behind.

He wondered if he’d done this differently before.

+

Getting outside was easy. Once they pushed the front doors open there was Dernier, bodies at his feet, cigar between his lips. The cigar fell out when he saw the girls. The heat drained from his cheeks but he couldn’t hide the remnants of the guards, the corpses, the warm blood melting the snow.

Snow. Steve blinked.

Why had he remembered sand? It had always been snow.

The endless plains of snow-covered fields, the mountains rising into the sky, blocking out everything but peals of frozen stuff pouring from the mostly permanent storm clouds. He had been freezing for months, for so long that he didn’t even feel the cold anymore.

“You were in the desert. Iraq.” Someone, a woman, had said to Steve. And then, at least in memory, he had been. “Are you listening Steven? A desert. Miles of sand. No one will bat an eye.”

If he concentrated he could still see the sand, it was all a matter of how hard he focused his eyes. Too unfocused, loose, trusting, and he was in the desert. Too sharp and he was back in Russia.

Steve was so preoccupied with this realization that he didn’t notice when one of the girls turned to look at him. The little blonde one, her ceramic face plastered into a smile. He almost missed the glint of the knife in her hand, but he managed to put his hands up, to hold her back from stabbing him as she tackled him to the ground.

The snowbank he fell on was warm. He remembered it being cold, he remembered snow pouring into his ears, blocking out the sound of Morita and Dernier trying to pull the girl off him.

“What are they?” Dernier demanded, his voice muffled.

But it was _warm_ , it was like, his head was in someone’s lap. His cheeks were being cradled, caressed.

“Steve?!” Morita yelled, but it sounded more like a woman’s voice.

Steve opened his eyes, not having remembered closing them, and he no longer saw the doll-faced girl. But Natasha.

Natasha Romanoff was leaning over him, saying his name over and over.

His head was in Bucky’s lap.

+

He came back to himself very slowly. Morita and Dernier and Russia dripping from his conscious like he was drip-drying after a long shower.

Bucky and Natasha watched him like they weren’t sure he was awake. They kept talking in whispers so soft Steve could barely make out what they were saying, even though they were hovering over him.

Bucky was still wearing what he’d worn on their date. His clothes looked rumpled, like they hadn’t dried properly from the downpour they’d been caught in. His hair was still damp-looking, pulled back into a frizzy bun. His cheeks were pale, his nose red.

Natasha looked like she’d been lounging around her house all day. Which is when Steve remembered. It was Sunday. Her day off.

He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut again, and Bucky squeezed his shoulder in the same moment. Bucky’s metal hand curling around his clavicle felt familiar, but he couldn’t even begin to remember why.

The panic set in first—almost an afterthought.

His heart began pounding, his vision swam with tears, and he couldn’t remember how to breathe on his own.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Bucky said, helping sit him up.

Steve, cradled in Bucky’s arms, his back to Bucky’s chest, tried to imitate what Bucky was doing. Bucky was breathing. It sounded simple, breathing, but at the moment it seemed like a language Steve had never quite got a handle on. But Bucky was doing it, and if he could do it, Steve could too.

As his vision cleared he realized he was somewhere unfamiliar. He didn’t remember leaving the taxi, but he was on a plush yellow couch in a brownstone. Directly across from him was a bow mounted on the wall above a huge TV and wide array of gaming consoles. He could smell something delicious coming from the kitchen and recognized the sound of Kate’s voice in another room, the cadence of her brusk syllables echoing through the walls along with Clint’s answering squeals.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing Steve said. He said it a few times and interspersed some “I’m so so sorry’s” for good measure.

“Shut up, Steve,” Bucky growled, but then quickly added, “It’s not your fault. Are you okay? How do you feel?”

“How long?” Steve asked, instead of answering.

Bucky glanced at Natasha, who nodded.

“About three hours,” Bucky said, slow, like he was trying to ease Steve into it.  

Steve had expected longer, so he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t relieved, but he wasn’t surprised. He was mostly ashamed.

“Did I hurt anyone?” Steve asked, his eyes wandering down the hall, to where Kate’s voice was emanating from.

“ _No_ ,” Bucky said, brooking no room for misinterpretation. He moved so that he was facing Steve, one hand never leaving his shoulder. “You had a panic attack in the taxi, but you didn’t lose consciousness. When I couldn’t get you out of it I called Natasha. You could still walk, you just weren’t responding, so we put you on the couch. You— Kate was, well, you said something about getting the girls out of somewhere and you kept looking at Kate. But you didn’t move from my side. Clint took Kate in the other room because he didn’t want her getting in the way.”

Steve licked his lips. They were very dry. Noticing this, Natasha handed him a glass of water that he drained, gratefully. He thanked her. He asked if he had said anything else.

“No, you—” Bucky glanced at Natasha, but before she could even respond in whatever nonverbal communication technique they seemed to have mastered, Bucky continued, “You asked for your shield again, but that was in the beginning, in the taxi.”

“Okay,” Steve nodded, staring down at the empty glass in his hands.

He knew Bucky and Natasha were probably having an entire conversation through blinks while he wasn’t paying attention, but he didn’t care. At this point he’d put both of them out so much that they could have left him on the street and told him to get back on his own and he would have completely understood.

Natasha, who hadn’t said a word out loud since Steve had proved he was conscious, said, “I’m gonna check on the chili,” plucked the glass from Steve’s hands, and disappeared through a pair of swinging doors into the kitchen.

After a few minutes of truly heavy silence, Steve said, “I’m—”

“If you say ‘I’m sorry’ again I might throttle you,” Bucky said.

Steve looked up at Bucky, an eyebrow raised.

“I’m serious, pal. I already feel bad enough about this already, don’t add to my guilt.”

When Steve frowned at him, and continued frowning, undaunted, even when Bucky smiled in return, the smile slid off Bucky’s face so fast Steve questioned whether or not it had even been there at all.

“I didn’t know, about the car thing. And I should have. Or I should have guessed. I have my things too, y’know? And I didn’t even think about it, why you walk places. I just—” Bucky was staring at Steve and his face was hard, his eyes cold, like he’d just committed something unforgivable.

“I should have told you,” Steve said, placing a hand over the one Bucky still had on his shoulder.

When Bucky tried to protest, Steve only shook his head.

“There’s no way you could have known. And if you had you never would have put me in that kind of situation. I was stubborn and I didn’t want to bother you by saying I really can’t handle cars.”

Steve took a big breath, he hadn’t realized he wasn’t breathing between words until he’d started tripping over his thoughts.

“Buck,” Steve said, making sure he had Bucky’s eyes on him before he continued. “I really like you. I want to date you. I just have a lot of shit I have to deal with right now. I’m a mess.” It looked like Bucky was about to protest, but before he could, Steve added, “And I understand if you don’t think right now is the right time for,” he gestured, awkwardly, vaguely, between them, “ _this_.”

Bucky clamped his lips shut. He studied Steve like he probably would have studied someone he was planning to punch in the face. He looked like he’d been wet from the rain and hadn’t left Steve’s side in three hours, he looked cold and flushed and like he might catch a cold. His lips were wet and red, like he’d been biting them.

Their first kiss wasn’t a sudden thing. Bucky was still watching Steve, he watched him the entire time he leaned in, slowly, testing the movement. It was sweet and oddly frustrating. Steve couldn’t think of a situation where he would have said no to Bucky’s lips on his.

The thing that was sudden was the way in which, once he was in place, Bucky pressed their mouths together. His lips _had_ been bitten. They were the softest things Steve had ever felt, fresh and warm and spit-slick and pliant even as they maneuvered Steve right where they wanted him.

Steve moaned a little and he could feel his entire face heating up as Bucky’s hand slipped behind his neck, fingers playing with the ends of Steve’s hair.

When Bucky pulled back it was reluctantly. He pressed one, two, maybe five, more kisses to Steve’s lips, then his chin and his cheeks.

When he finally pulled away completely he still looked like he wanted to punch Steve, but he also looked like he might be persuaded to fuck Steve senseless instead.

“Every year, on Thanksgiving, my friends throw this party. It’s right here at Nat’s place and it’s only a few other people, and me, and Sam already said he’d come with Riley. You’re gonna be my date,” Bucky said.

“Okay?” Steve said.

“And we’re having dinner at Nat’s tonight with Clint and Kate, because Clint’s brother sent him chili and it’s the best damn thing I’ve ever eaten, I swear to god. And when it’s finished I will walk you home and make sure you check in with Sam so he knows you made it back alive and tuck you into bed. Because, Steven Rogers, let me make this perfectly clear, I really like you too and I want to date you and I, myself, am a bit of a mess. But it’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna get through this and we’re probably gonna come out even messier,” Bucky said. “But we’re gonna do it together.”

If Bucky could feel the tears wetting his shirt from where Steve pressed his forehead to Bucky’s shoulder, he didn’t say anything about it.

+

Several hours later, tucked into bed, with Cap curled on the pillow beside him, Natasha’s number on speed dial on his phone, Advil and water on his nightstand, Steve slipped into a nightmare.

They were all in the car. Him, Morita, Gabe, Dernier, and Falsworth, sitting, and Dum Dum, hanging out the sunroof, shooting behind them.

“They’re just kids!” Gabe was shouting.

“No, they’re not,” Dernier said.

Falsworth was tying a sash around Dernier’s hacked up arm.

“Are you sure you guys—”

“Just drive,” Morita grumbled. He was shoving sunflower seeds in his mouth. Undoubtedly trying his hardest not to think about the little girl they’d left, crouched, injured in the snow, blood dying her clenched teeth as she growled at them.

Steve looked out the window and the snow went on for miles undeterred by anything but more snowfall.

Morita spilled his seeds all over the floor.

When the car exploded this time, for the hundred thousandth time he’d dreamt this, Steve remembered. He remembered in a way that he knew he would continue to remember even when he still woke up. This wouldn’t go away once he opened his eyes and become a foggy, almost nonexistent memory of something that happened once in a dream.

When the car exploded, Morita wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and he flew forward, through the windshield. Steve fell into the empty space Morita had left behind, his shoulder catching on the door of the car just as the door unhinged.

Steve’s camo caught on the handle and he was pulled away from the flames, the explosion, pulled clear free and fell, face first, into the dirty snow. The car door his only protection. His shield.

When Steve woke up, minutes later, gasping, he still remembered. And he remembered the girls and their handlers descending on him as he laid there, holding his shield over himself. And he remembered screaming and kicking and fighting as he tried to get back to the car, which was on fire and still rolling down the hillside.

He remembered everything with a clarity he hadn’t ever thought he’d be able to achieve.

It was four thirty in the morning, but Steve climbed on his treadmill anyway.

+

When it was a decent hour, Steve took a shower, put clean clothes on, and tried to get ready for his V.A. appointment. He nearly talked himself out of going a dozen times. He didn’t want to face Natasha, he didn’t want Bucky to see him like this, but he also, for the first time in a long, long time, didn’t think he could stay in his home for much longer.

His anxiety was sending Cap on a rampage. She was pushing magazines and frames off all flat surfaces in her immediate vicinity.

He needed to talk to someone about everything he remembered, but he also never wanted anyone to talk about it with him for the rest of his life. Maybe even his next several lives. He felt like he was crawling out of skin. His hands were shaking, his feet felt skittish, and every inch of him was demanding movement.

It was just his luck then, when, twenty minutes later, having deemed it an appropriate time to leave for the V.A., Steve opened his front door and came face to face with Peggy Carter.

She was standing, hand raised to knock, Angie at one shoulder smiling apologetically, and Sharon at the other, looking mortified.

“Hello Steve,” Peggy said.

Steve believed, that in the face of Peggy’s perfectly crisp British accent, sharp nails, sharper heels, and the discerning tilt to her lips, that he couldn’t be blamed for slamming the door in her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CHAPTER SPOILERS: 
> 
> AGENT PEGGY CARTER AND HER DAINTY GIRLFRIEND TO THE RESCUE! Also Sharon, poor, flustered, confused, Sharon. AND THANKSGIVING!! :))


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. MUCH. HAPPENS. IN THIS CHAPTER. I super duper apologize if it seems rushed, especially the ending. Please let me know if there's any confusion, I have read the last section so many times my head is spinning? So I figured I'd just post it and see how it goes.

That day, at the end of his appointment, Steve told Natasha that he’d decided to try medication.

“This couldn’t have been a light decision,” Natasha said. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Steve said, nodding. He had his hands folded in his lap, his eyes downcast. He tried to ignore the fact that his fingers were trembling, that his shoulders were unnaturally stiff. “I’ve done research. I think this is the best decision for me.”

“Okay,” Natasha said, already writing out a prescription on a thick pad of paper. “While we’re on the subject of decision-making, I have another one I’d like you to think about.”

Steve grabbed his cup of coffee from the table by his chair and chugged the last of it. He had a feeling he’d need the extra caffeine.

“I think we need to find you a new therapist,” Natasha confessed. She clicked her pen shut and ripped Steve’s prescription from her pad. She placed it on the coffee table before putting her pen and paper back in her briefcase.

“Why?” Steve asked, bemused. He was so caught off guard by her statement that the wave of self incrimination that would have normally paralyzed him didn’t even have time to surface. “I thought we were making progress.”

“We are, that’s the problem,” Natasha said. “It’s unprofessional of me to be too close with my patients. If I’m your doctor we can’t be friends, Steve. The whole point of me is to be an objective party, and I’m not exactly objective anymore.”

“We’re friends?” Steve asked, really, truly baffled. He wasn’t used to making new friends. He knew Bucky considered him more than that, but, Bucky was Bucky. A boyfriend was one thing, but a friend?

“We’re friends, Steve,” Natasha said, gesturing to her surroundings. She was sitting on Steve’s couch with Steve in the chair across from her. She had her feet on the coffee table and her own coffee in one of Steve’s Mets mugs at her side. Steve’s cat was curled at her hip, purring lazily as Natasha deigned to pet her.

“You’re coming to my Thanksgiving dinner, we talk about my daughter, I’m petting your cat,” Natasha said. “We’re friends.”

“Her name is Captain Marvel,” Steve said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I have a colleague who has openings for new patients. I’ve already given him your name. Try him, Steve. Tomorrow at your usual time. And if you don’t like him we can look for someone else. You’re not alone in this, I’m not leaving you. I just have to make a choice here. And I want to be your friend more I want to be your doctor,” Natasha said. She was collecting her things while she talked.

Cap slipped away from the couch bitterly, her scratching stick preoccupied.

Natasha slipped her feet in her heels and checked her watch. Before she put her jacket on she took a business card out of her pocket and handed it to Steve, who was hovering, nervously, uselessly, a few feet away.

“This one probably won’t do house calls,” Natasha informed him. “So I’d sort out the mess with the neighbors.”

Steve nodded numbly and thanked her for coming. When she left he was alone again. He thought he could hear Peggy laughing next door at Sharon’s. He couldn’t tell if he was anxious to speak to her or see her or, as per usual, he was just anxious to leave his apartment. He sat on the couch and stared at the two pieces of paper on his coffee table.

One was a prescription medication, for a drug he would have to take twice a day at regular intervals.

One said only:

James “Rhodey” Rhodes, War Machine, Therapist, Toy Plane Enthusiast

Washington D.C. V.A. Center

+

“So what you’re telling me is that Peggy turned up at your front door after six, almost seven, months of being on an undercover mission and you closed the door in her face and haven’t left your apartment since,” Sam said. He had called Steve earlier to ask about Thanksgiving at Natasha’s and had subsequently been on the phone with Steve for three hours getting caught up with all that had happened since they’d last seen each other. Which, admittedly, had been an awful lot.

“Don’t forget that I called my boyfriend to ask my therapist to make a housecall because I didn’t want to risk Peggy seeing me if I left the apartment,” Steve added.

“Mustn’t forget that.” Sam sighed. “And do you have to call Bucky your boyfriend? We’re so old dude.”

Steve mulled over whether to tell Sam that he wasn’t sure if Bucky was even his official boyfriend and that he’d just been calling him “boyfriend” secretly, selfishly, in his own head. With the exception of just now, when the word had slipped from his mouth unbidden, leaving a horrible flush running down Steve’s neck. Instead of confessing any of this, he chose to bug the crap out of Sam.

“Would you prefer me to say life-partner? Snuggle-buddy? Lover?”

Steve could hear Sam gagging through the phone.

“Oh, god, stick to boyfriend.”

“Riley is your boyfriend, how come Bucky can’t be mine?”

“Riley is my _fiancé_.”

“Oh, sorry, didn’t know you’d upgraded your relationship to French vernacular.”

“So what if I did, wiseass. What are you gonna do about it?”

“On va voir.” Steve smiled.

 

He could hear Sam groaning through the phone. He could hear Riley, somewhere in the background, going, “Aw, you called me your fiancé.”

Sam said, “You _are_ my fiancé, dumbass,” and somewhere in between the loud smacking kisses Steve could suddenly hear over the line and the exact amount of time it took Steve to slam the phone back on the receiver, he completely forgot to tell Sam about possibly changing therapists.

He figured it could wait a few more days, anyhow.

+

On Tuesday, Sharon brought Steve muffins.

He opened his door at eight in the morning to Sharon, in purple scrubs with little elephants on them. Her hair was tied into a knot out of her face so Steve could see that her cheeks were bright red. She held a tray out to him, covered with what looked like blueberry muffins.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

Steve could see Sharon’s front door over her shoulder, it was swinging open like someone was about to peek around it. Before Sharon’s guest, who was probably, definitely, Peggy, could see Steve in his workout shorts, sweating from the roots of his hair, at ass o clock in the morning, he ushered Sharon inside and closed the door.

It wasn’t until Sharon was seated at his kitchen table, tray of muffins pushed in front of him like a peace offering, that Steve asked Sharon what she was sorry for.

“Oh boy,” Sharon said, taking a breath. She fiddled with the edge of her scrubs, her fingers shaking like she hadn’t been sleeping, a mannerism that Steve knew too well. “Um, you see, I have this aunt, more of a cousin really. We’re close in age but she’s my mom’s much younger sister. And we’re friends. And I send her letters and Skype with her sometimes, to get things off my chest. She’s usually so far away it’s kind of nice to tell her stuff and think it’s not really gossiping if she’s just giving me advice. And, well, I told her a lot about you.”

Sharon wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Peggy,” Steve said, a few things clicking into place. “You told Peggy about your next door neighbor and then she visited you and realized it was me.”

“Yeah,” Sharon admitted. “It was an awful thing for me to do, even if I thought you two didn’t know each other. I didn’t say anything bad.” Sharon flailed, grabbing Steve’s arm. “I really like you, Steve. A lot. You’re a good friend.”

She pulled away and stared at the tray of muffins. Steve wondered why he kept having these realizations lately that he had more friends than he’d thought.

“I just asked for advice. For you. I told her your symptoms and stuff because she’s been through similar shit. She was in combat, once. But I invaded your privacy and I went over the line. Especially because Peggy’s your ex. Which I never expected.”

Steve smiled. “We only dated for, like, a year, while I was between tours. It was hard with her overseas so much. And we became closer when Peggy started dating Angie.”

Steve didn’t tell her that he’d lived with the two of them for awhile while they were all on base overseas. He didn’t tell her that since he’d been stateside he hadn’t wanted to bother them with his general ineptitude and had, instead, decided to cut himself off from them after a brief internal struggle that Sam had tried to talk him out of. He didn’t tell Sharon that Peggy and Angie had known him when he’d been a different person and he was afraid, practically terrified, that they wouldn’t like the man he’d become.

“She said as much,” Sharon said. When she sighed it sounded as existential as a sigh could get. “I’m really sorry.”

Steve put a hand on Sharon’s, where she’d set them on the table.

“I forgive you,” Steve said. “You brought muffins.”

Sharon laughed and it sounded wet, like she was dangerously close to tears. Sharon was a woman who had trained rigorously to be a nurse. Who worked more night shifts and ER shifts than Steve probably knew about. Who helped people with diseases and ailments Steve couldn’t even pronounce. Who smiled at children who were dying and told them stories and cleaned up their puke like it wasn’t a big deal. And here she was at Steve’s kitchen table, nearly in tears.

“It was an invasion of privacy,” Steve admitted. “But, in the end, you were only trying to help. You need to talk to someone too, every once in awhile. I’ve learned the past week or so that it’s the healthy thing to do.”

He tried to coax Sharon into a smile but she only let out another wet laugh, grabbed a muffin, and shoved it in her mouth.

While she chewed she said, mournfully, around a mouthful of blueberries, “Peggy’s really mad at you.”

Steve sighed. “I know.”

“And Angie’s worried. You never contacted her and you live like two blocks away.”

“I know.”

“And Natasha invited them to Thanksgiving dinner.”

“I— oh. I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, so, you probably shouldn’t forgive me so easily.”

Steve shook his head before looking down at his sweat-stained shirt. He stretched his arms over his head and tried not to laugh at the wrinkle that formed on Sharon’s nose when she finally smelled the sweat he’d been ruminating in for the past hour.

“Well, if I’m being honest, I only forgave you because I have an appointment with a new therapist today and I need you to help me pick an outfit.”

Sharon nodded gravely, grabbed the tray of muffins with one arm, and scooped Cap from the counter with the other. Cap squawked and her paw knocked one of the muffins to the floor. Sharon continued toward Steve’s bedroom unhindered.

“If I have to make up for my mistakes with muffins and well-coordinated outfits, Rogers, I’ll do it. Don’t think I won’t.”

Steve gave her a minute to throw all of his clothes onto his bed before he followed behind her.

+

Steve hadn’t told Natasha about the kids. Or his dream and what he’d remembered from his time in Russia. All he’d told her was that he’d like to try medication. He hadn’t even told her the details of his panic attack on Sunday.

He’d spent much of Monday thinking about why he hadn’t told her and he’d come to probably the same decision she had when she realized he was holding back information: That he didn’t want to tell her because she his friend now.

Sam, Riley, Bucky, Sharon, and Natasha. And Clint and Kate, Steve supposed. Maybe even Peggy and Angie, if they could forgive him. They were all his friends.

Telling a stranger what was going on in his head was one thing. But telling someone he saw regularly? Someone who knew his probably-boyfriend and visited his apartment and knew his cat by name? It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Natasha. It was that, now that Natasha was close to him, he didn’t want to burden her with his problems.

He was coming to recognize that he had some pretty bad habits when it came to his own self-confidence.

As he left his apartment Tuesday afternoon, with promises from Sharon that she’d keep Peggy occupied, and freshly ironed khakis, he pressed his headphones into his ears, kept his head down, and hoped his new therapist was someone with whom he wouldn’t become more than friendly with.

Bucky was at the front desk when Steve got to the V.A. He had his head bent and was scribbling something on a patient’s file. His hair was down and, as Steve watched him, every few seconds he would have to flip his bangs out of his face. His cheeks were flushed like he was unduly frustrated. Steve didn’t understand why he didn’t just put his hair into a bun, until he noticed that something was missing.

Bucky wasn’t wearing his prosthetic.

“Bucky?” Steve said.

Bucky startled, whipping his head up. “Oh, Steve. You’re early.”

“I’m on time,” Steve said, looking at the clock above Bucky’s desk. For once he was actually right on schedule.

“Oh,” Bucky said, staring, seemingly uncomprehendingly, somewhere over Steve’s shoulder.

“Are you alright?” Steve asked, gesturing at the file still splayed underneath Buck’s right hand.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, but he seemed to be shrinking in on himself. His shoulders caving as he stared at his fingers, flexing on the desk.

Steve watched him for a moment, but he didn’t seem to be in a talking mood. If there was anyone who could understand that, it would be Steve. So instead of pressing him, or asking where his prosthetic was, Steve said, “Do you want me to put your hair up?”

Bucky stared up at him, eyes wide and a little haunted. “Yes, please.”

Steve came around the desk and took a hair band from the drawer he’d seen Bucky stash them. He wrapped it around his wrist and then gently tangled his fingers in Bucky’s hair. Bucky seemed to relax into his touch, pressing his scalp into Steve’s large hands. Encouraged, Steve cautiously untangled sweaty strands from around Buck’s face, and then worked on collecting it all into a knot.

He’d just tied the hair band and brushed some loose hairs behind Buck’s ears when the phone on Bucky’s desk rang, shrill in the quiet reception area.

Bucky seemed to snap out of whatever silent, brooding trance he’d been in, and scrambled to pick up the phone.

“V.A. mental health— Oh, Rhodey, yeah, he’s here. I was just going over— Oh my god, dude, shut the hell up. I’m sending him back now.” Bucky slammed the phone down with some hastily mustered vitriol and turned to look at Steve apologetically. “Dr. Rhodes is waiting for you. Second door after Nat’s.”

“Oh, okay,” Steve said. But he didn’t move, he just stared at Bucky for a second, hoping he was conveying some manner of concern without pressuring Bucky into telling him what was wrong.

“Do you—” Bucky paused to bite his lip.

Steve hadn’t really noticed earlier, but Buck was wearing a sweater today. Big enough to distract from the fact that he was missing an arm, if one wasn’t paying attention. He had it pinned up on the left side but it was big and bulky. Buck’s entire face was flushed and he was sweating at the temples. He looked overheated and overwhelmed and Steve really, really didn’t want to leave him here.

“Do you want to grab some food after your appointment?” Bucky asked. He said it like Steve might say no, like he was allowed to decline.

“Of course,” Steve said, suddenly smiling. And then, with a burst of confidence and no small amount of affection, he placed both hands on Bucky’s shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

He left Bucky staring past Steve, looking smaller and quieter than Steve had ever seen him. Steve hoped his appointment would be over quickly.

+

James “Rhodey” Rhodes had the most chaotic office Steve had ever encountered. There were mechanical devices mounted on the walls and parts to machines shoved in boxes and strewn across chairs. There were blueprints on the floor and thick designer pencils stashed in every crevice that wasn’t already holding screwdrivers and wrenches.

It was less an office and more the workshop of a mad scientist.

“Sorry for the mess,” Dr. Rhodes said, shaking Steve’s hand. “My husband’s an asshole.”

“He’s what?” Steve asked, baffled.

“Oh, sorry. Tony Stark? Haven’t you met him?”

“The name sounds familiar,” Steve said, wondering where he’d heard it before.

“He did your boy’s metal prosthetic,” Rhodes said, pointing to some of what Steve figured were abandoned versions of Bucky’s arm, stacked in the back corner. “He works for Veterans Affairs now, and he has his own office, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen him in it.”

Rhodes sighed and the sound seemed to come from a small well of patience deep within himself.

_Oh no_ , Steve thought. _We’re probably going to be friends_.

“Sorry, let’s get started then,” Rhodes said, pulling a thin file from under a stack of papers on his desk. “I understand Natasha started you on medication?”

“Yes,” Steve said. He’d ordered it and it was supposed to arrive that night.

“Natasha’s taken pretty thorough notes on your case, so I won’t bore you with icebreakers or anything like that. Why don’t we pick up right where you left off with her.” Rhodes produced a notepad and a pen. “Anything new to share?”

Steve sighed. He felt like he was unspooling a little at the thought of telling someone about what he’d remembered. He took a breath and started to finally, finally talk.

+

On a bench in the park, Steve waited for Bucky to pick up their food from a food truck. Even though he couldn’t see Bucky’s face and there was a significant distance between them, Steve could tell there was something wrong. Bucky had been quiet the whole walk to the park and had only spoken to ask Steve what he wanted to eat. Even as he ordered he hadn’t seemed nearly as exuberant or friendly as the man Steve had come to know.

Bucky returned twenty minutes later, bag of crepes in hand. He barely looked at Steve except to hand him his share of the food. They ate in a silence that was so foreign to their relationship so far that Steve spent nearly ten minutes making himself sick and dizzy with the possibility that he had done something wrong.

_No_ , Steve reminded himself, pressing a hand to his head. _This has nothing to do with me, this is about Bucky_.

Still, it was very hard to convince himself that Bucky’s strange subdued silence wasn’t his own fault. It was very hard to convince his brain to focus on something other than whether Bucky hated him now. Anxiety, Steve decided, could be a strangely self-centered asshole.

“Bucky—”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky blurted. He dropped his uneaten crepe down on the bench and turned to Steve. “This isn’t like me, I just—”

“Bucky, it’s fine, you’re fine.” Steve took a breath. “What’s wrong?”

Bucky wouldn’t stop staring at the ground. He stared at the ground like he wanted it to rise up and swallow him and he was angry that it wasn’t following through.

“Tony took the arm last night. Upgrades. Repairs. Whatever. I just—” Bucky stopped and seemed to be trying to relax. The tension in his shoulders had to be giving him a headache.

Steve reached and placed a hand on Buck’s right shoulder, kneading the muscle with his fingers. Bucky got even tenser, for a moment, before relaxing minutely.

“I can live without it,” Bucky said. “I _can_. I spent a long time without a fully-functioning prosthetic and even longer without a prosthetic at all. It’s just that since I got the metal one I— It’s hard to imagine going back to being without it.”

Steve let his hand slide further around Bucky’s shoulders, across the nape of his neck, and then, finally, laid his arm across Bucky’s back. Slowly, carefully, he pulled Bucky into his side, so that Bucky’s head was pressed to his chest, his hair tickling Steve’s collarbones.

“I’m fine, it’s just, like, losing it all over again. Every time Tony has to take it. I lose my arm again. Again and again and again.” Bucky might have been crying then, but he’d grabbed hold of Steve’s shirt and wasn’t letting go. He pressed his face into Steve’s side and shivered like he was freezing, like he hadn’t been truly warm in years.

Steve rubbed small circles into Bucky’s back and nuzzled his chin into Bucky’s hair. He didn’t think there was anything he could do but stay there and hold him and, luckily, it seemed that was all Bucky wanted from him anyway.

When Bucky walked Steve back to his apartment it was a quiet affair. They didn’t talk much except to note which direction they were walking to avoid other people. When they were outside the backdoor of Steve’s building Bucky pulled Steve into a hug.

“I’m really fine,” Bucky said. “I’ll be fine. I’m sorry about today. I should be used to this by now, right? I’ll be better tomorrow.”

Steve shook his head. Something was clicking into place, something Sam had told him, yelled at him, really, with Steve’s front door and a thousand, pretty lies, separating them.

“How about we make a deal?” He said.

Bucky blinked up at him, uncomprehendingly.

“You don’t have to do that with me. The ‘I’m fines’ and ‘I’m sorrys.’ You don’t do that with me and I won’t do it with you.” Steve smoothed his thumbs over Bucky’s cheekbones.

Bucky blinked and blinked and, then, a perplexed little smile formed in the corners of his lips.

“Sure,” Bucky said. “I can do that.”

They said goodbye and Steve licked into Bucky’s mouth like he could maybe make Bucky forget the pain he was in if he just kissed and kissed and kissed him.

+

That night Steve dreamt of Peggy.

He was strapped to a table, big buckles around his waist and legs and arms, his head swinging back and forth with the pain of whatever they’d done to him. His skin, all of his skin, burned and throbbed and burned again like he’d been doused in gasoline and set on fire. Only the fire wasn’t eating him up and there always seemed to be another part of him that could still be hurt, even when each wave seemed as all-encompassing as the last.

And then there was Peggy. She came to him with her curls falling out of her helmet and Steve wouldn’t stop screaming. Her hair was soft and springy and she looked like the little girls who’d been slicing his arms and filling his veins with poison for seven days, six hours, and twelve minutes. And Peggy tried to calm him down, tried to shush him, but she ended up just shoving a cloth into his mouth and wheeling the entire table, Steve and straps and all, right out of the facility.

And then days later, while everything still hurt, while his eyes ached from the bright fluorescent lights of the debriefing room, and there were still scars fading on his arms and legs, Peggy leaned over the table between them and said: “You were in the desert. Iraq.”

Steve heard what she said but he was more preoccupied tallying his scars and scars and even more scars, scars that would never heal, littering his body and his insides like amateur constellations, all with invisible strings that only he could recognize tying them all together

When he didn’t do anything but blink against the light, when his eyes didn’t do anything but water, she said, “Are you listening Steven? A desert. Miles of sand. No one will bat an eye. Captain Rogers, affirmative?”

He’d said, “Yes, ma’am,” and after that her words had always been somewhere inside of him, tainting everything, making the snow become sand and dulling the blood that filled his dreams. But he still, to this day, didn’t know what he’d agreed to.

Steve woke up panting and sick from the thought that he’d spent months worried that Peggy wouldn’t like the man he’d become, when she’d already seen how he’d become this way.

\+   

 

And then, somehow, it was over a week later. And Steve had gone to his sessions with Rhodes and taken his medication every day, twice and day. He’d had lunch with Bucky and kissed Bucky and massaged Bucky’s shoulder once he got his metal arm reattached. He’d avoided Peggy like the plague, still unsure of how to face her. And started helping Sam make his seating chart for the wedding and put all of his effort into trying to be healthy and content and a good friend and a good maybe-boyfriend. And.

It was Thanksgiving.

And he was, maybe, definitely, standing outside Natasha’s door with a tray of homemade raspberry-blueberry pie bars and a shred of hope that Peggy wasn’t there yet so he could sequester himself in some dark corner with Bucky for the entire evening.

His hopes and dreams were squashed before he could even ring the doorbell. As he attempted, in the dim light, to locate said doorbell, Natasha’s front door went swinging open and there was Peggy Carter.

She was wearing a red dress and high-heeled boots and red lipstick. Her mouth was tilted in the frowniest of frowns Steve had ever seen.

“Steve Rogers,” she said. “I am very hurt that you’ve been avoiding me. Please give me one good reason as to why I should let you inside this house.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared down at him. Steve had known this was going to happen, but he still shrunk underneath her gaze into the shrimpy sickly five foot nothing kid he’d been when he met her at Dr. Erskine’s training facility.

He raised the tray of pie bars toward her and tilted his head.

“I brought dessert?” Steve said, although it came out as more of a pleading question.

Peggy frowned down at his tray and then his face and then his tray again.

“Steve!” A bubbly voice cried from inside the house.

Before Steve knew what was happening he had an armful of Angie and a single trembling hand still holding his tray.

“Steve, you are in _so_ much trouble,” Angie said, still clutching him. “We thought— I don’t even know what we thought. I was _so worried_.”

Peggy, probably sensing impending dilemma, plucked the tray of pie bars out of Steve’s hand before he could drop it.

“Angie, dear, please bring Steven inside so we can properly eviscerate him,” Peggy announced, opening the door a little wider.

There was no venom in her words. If anything, she looked a little sad, a little older than when Steve had last seen her. He was acutely aware that all the things he’d just remembered about his last tour, Peggy had seen and remembered every day of the last seven months. And he had been avoiding her. He didn’t want to imagine what she must have thought happened to him.

Before his memories had returned he’d been expecting her to be angry with him. For her to cut him out of her life. In his mind the worst thing she could have done for him avoiding her and Angie for nearly a year was Peggy cutting him off. So he’d done the cutting for her.

He’d thought it would be the right thing to do. But now, from the set of her stance alone it seemed all Steve had really done was make her worry. Her legs were tense like she’d finally trapped a skittish animal and was prepared to run after him should he try to run away again. But Steve wasn’t scared anymore.

 **  
** Inside, Steve could hear all of his friends, laughing and eating. He could hear the clink of silverware and the sharp pop of wine bottles being opened and he could hear Clint cooing at Kate and Kate, undoubtedly, firing a Nerf gun at some unsuspecting party-goer. He was led inside, willingly, by Angie, and it was the first time in a long time he walked _toward_ a room full of people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considering changing the summary of this fic to: Steve Rogers makes a lot of friends. (I think that’s really appealing?? IDK.)
> 
> NEXT CHAPTER SPOILERS: THANKSGIVING PART 2 + ART IS INVOLVED SOMEHOW (CAN YOU GUESS?? YOU PrOBABLY GUESSED RIGHT.)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so SO SO SO SORRY this took so long, like six months, jfc, and that its not even that long. grad school apps, man, never apply to grad school it’s the worst. i’m hoping to finish this by march 22nd, bc thats when i started this whole thing, but i’m a terrible procrastinator so i’m not making any promises besides that i will finish it, someday, i promise. this chapter is just cheese, a giant ball of cheese, thats my only warning.

Steve was grateful that the moment he stepped into the living room Clint shoved Kate in his arms and rushed off with mumbled excuses. The toddler he was currently holding against his chest, while armed with a small Nerf gun and staring at him suspiciously as he awkwardly cradled her, was his only shield from Peggy, who was making good on her promise to eviscerate him. 

Peggy spent about twenty minutes informing him that he was an absolute idiot if he’d thought cutting her out of his life was going to work, all while standing near the entrance to the living room, with Angie’s hand wrapped supportively around her waist. She then moved her lecture to the couch and continued to spell out for him, in startling detail, just how stupid he was, and how much they’d missed him over the past months. Peggy did this without missing a beat, shedding a tear, or being reduced to shouting at him, all while Angie lounged in and out of her lap and sipped on a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Steve was afraid to ask where she’d gotten the wine.

Forty minutes into this arrangement, Bucky found him, thoroughly scolded, ten shades paler, and missing several chunks of hair from Kate yanking on his scalp in order to escape his arms.

“Steve?” Bucky asked, glancing over at Peggy and Angie, both of whom had fallen quiet as he approached. “You okay?”

Steve was, surprisingly, feeling much better. He would never admit it, but he definitely had missed Peggy calling him on his shit, and treating his person with the exact amount of force she used on everybody she met. She didn’t coddle him, or cater to him, or make him feel like he needed someone to hold his hand. She treated him like the mess of an adult he was, and he appreciated that. He’d missed that. 

That being said, Steve had also missed Bucky. Bucky who was standing in front of Steve in a suit jacket, checkered pants, and a bright red tie. Bucky whose hair was tied back by two neat braids that started at his temples and wound around his head. Steve could feel the heat returning to his cheeks from just staring up at Buck’s face as his pink tongue slipped out to wet his lips. 

It was lucky that Kate fired a Nerf pellet at Steve’s head at point blank range, otherwise he wasn’t sure how long he would’ve sat there, gaping like an idiot.

“Katie!” Bucky said, startled. He plucked the girl from Steve’s arms as Peggy scooched over to inspect Steve’s head.

“I think you’ll live,” Peggy said, after giving the red welt on Steve’s forehead a cursory glance. Her attention was immediately stolen by Bucky, who she smiled at.

Steve knew what it meant when people said some people smiled like sharks, but he hadn’t ever seen someone pull it off quite right until he’d met Peggy. Peggy, whose red lipstick and sharp teeth made her look as deadly as they did beautiful, was smiling at Bucky like he was her new favorite meal. 

“Peggy Carter,” Peggy said, offering her hand to Bucky to shake.  “Wonderful to finally meet you, Mr. Barnes.”

Bucky blinked at Peggy, confused.  “I don’t think anyone’s ever called me ‘Mr.’ before. You can just call me Bucky.”

“Well then, you may call me Peggy.” Peggy released Bucky’s hand and, while Bucky was distracted introducing himself to Angie, waggled her eyebrows inappropriately at Steve. 

‘He’s cute,’ she mouthed.

Steve, glad that Kate was climbing Bucky’s shoulders and out of his hands for the moment, tucked his flushed face into his arms and tried to do his best impression of the embarrassed friend. Meanwhile, a tiny nugget of calm was forming in his stomach, smoothing over his nerves, easing a smile onto his face. He may have been trying to appear aggrieved but he hadn’t felt this relaxed in a long time. 

While Bucky wasn't looking Kate began firing Nerf pellets at the crown of Steve’s head. Steve buried his face further in his arms and smiled.

+

Thanksgiving had been a resounding success. There had been more people than Steve had expected, but it turned out Steve knew almost everyone there. Which made the crowd feel a little smaller, a little more intimate than normal. 

Almost everyone, however, implied there was someone he’d never met before. Whether by coincidence or the carefully micromanaged fate that was Natasha’s Thanksgiving seating chart, Steve ended up meeting the aforementioned stranger due to being squished between him and Bucky at the dinner table. Luckily, Natasha had had the forethought to put Steve closest to the door, unluckily, the stranger she’d sat him next to was none other than Tony Stark. 

Steve had heard a lot of adjectives used in describing Tony Stark, from Bucky as a proud owner of a Stark Tech prosthetic limb, from Rhodey as his husband, from Natasha as his aggrieved coworker, all of which had led him to half-expect the man to ooze vitriol and eat small children for dessert. What he didn’t expect was a well-dressed man in an expensive suit and tie, with an impeccably trimmed goatee, and fingernails ingrained with motor oil that he drummed on Natasha’s white table cloth as they waited for dinner to be served.

He didn’t expect the man to sneak a glance furtively at his husband, who was seated on the other side of him, before rummaging in his pants pocket and producing a handful of candy.

“Chocolate covered raisins,” Tony whispered, with no preamble. He stuck a candy under Steve’s nose. “Want one?”

Steve did. He chewed on it thoughtfully. 

“Don’t look so suspicious, it’ll ruin the flavor,” Tony said, offering Steve another raisin. 

Three minutes later, under circumstances Steve wouldn’t entirely remember, Tony was squeezing Steve’s bicep and pelting him with dizzying questions about exactly which cocktail of steroids made muscles like his a physical possibility. 

He then tried to offer Steve peanuts until Steve admitted that he was allergic, and proceeded to make “irony” jokes about nut allergies, while waggling his eyebrows between Steve and Bucky. 

Steve had felt annoyance bubbling under his skin. And then surprise that he felt annoyed, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt anything resembling anger at anyone other than himself. And then relief. And then, sharply, annoyed again when Tony tried to slide his arm across Steve’s shoulders in cameraderie. He jerked away and glared at the man, who grinned snarkily in return. Steve didn’t think they’d be friends any time soon, but he did appreciate the challenge. 

Bucky, ever observant, had placed Kate in Steve’s lap again just as Tony was rearing to start another conversation. This prevented Tony from starting anything, Steve from retaliating, and Kate from flicking mashed potatoes across the table. An excellent solution, all around.

And then, right on cue, dinner began. Natasha heaved the biggest turkey Steve had ever seen onto the dinner table and carved it as Clint retrieved a seemingly endless array of side dishes. Peggy handed Steve mashed potatoes and carrots and Bucky snuck spinach onto Steve’s plate and then aided Sam in sneaking green beans beside the spinach until Steve handed Kate to Tony and guarded his plate from any further ruination via unwanted vegetables. Bucky laughed at him and hooked their ankles together under the table and Steve blushed like he was sixteen again and obediently ate his greens, until Natasha snapped at him that they needed to give thanks, first, Rogers, jeez. 

Since none of them were particularly religious, giving thanks was more like going around the table and saying what they were grateful for. 

For Natasha it was Kate, for Clint it was both Kate and Natasha, for Sam it was Riley and friends and food, and for Peggy it was Angie. It went around the table like this, everyone saying almost the same thing in different ways. Angie teared up as she held Peggy’s hand and said she was thankful they could be together for at least this. Bucky squeezed his knee and told the whole table he was grateful for Steve.

And Steve, well, he didn’t say this. He was too choked up and flushed and embarrassed to say all of this out loud, but he was grateful for all of it.The dinner, the people, even Tony.

They’d all lost people. They were all, in their own ways, orphans. And for the first time in a long time, Steve didn’t mind being alone if it meant he could be alone with them. It felt a little like he’d been picking up family his whole life. Peggy, first, in boot camp, and then Angie in a dive in Europe. Sam in Afghanistan and with Sam came Riley. All of his friends tied to him, somehow, miraculously, by invisible strings. All leading him to Natasha and Sharon and Clint and Kate. To this house on Thanksgiving. And Bucky. Bucky who was holding his hand and rubbing his thumb over his knuckles. Bucky who, when dinner and dessert were done and the dishes were put away and the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special was murmuring low in the background as their friends laughed, was kissing his neck and asking him if he wanted to get out of here? 

Yes, Steve answered. Of course, yes. 

Later, after they’d run down the empty streets, holding hands and laughing like a couple of teenagers, ducking soft snowflakes all the way to Steve’s apartment; later, after Steve had introduced Bucky to Cap to Cap’s great indifference and Bucky’s doe-eyed awe; later, after he’d locked Bucky in his bedroom and deprived him of clothes; later, when they’re both sticky with sweat and cooling to the sound of Cap’s muffled whines on the other side of the door, her protests almost drowned by the sound of Steve’s heart beating in his chest, for once, mercifully, from the good kind of adrenaline; later Steve asked Bucky to be his boyfriend and Bucky told him he already was.

+

“I really think you should draw me naked,” Bucky said.

It was the Monday after Thanksgiving, Steve stared at him. 

They had walked back from Steve’s appointment with Rhodey together, holding hands. They had just sat at Steve’s table with cups of coffee and leftover muffins Sharon had made for Thanksgiving. Steve was very grateful he did not choke on his mouthful of muffin, instead he gracefully swallowed it and put the rest back on his plate before responding.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. “What did you say?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You heard me right, you jerk. I think you should draw me naked.”

“Naked,” Steve repeated, “as in—”

“As in, with no clothes on.”

“Don’t you think this is a little fast—”

“We’ve already had sex,” Bucky said, narrowing his eyes.

“Oh my god,” Steve said. “I know we did, I was there. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what are you saying? If it's a bad idea just tell me,” Bucky said, crossing his arms over his chest.

He was getting defensive, Steve was beginning to recognize the signs. He was also beginning to realize he wasn’t to blame every time Bucky got like this, sometimes it happened just because Bucky was frustrated and human and that wasn’t Steve’s fault. Instead of getting sad and small and apologetic like he might have a month ago, Steve got reasonable. 

“It’s not a bad idea, Buck. What I mean is that I haven’t drawn so much as a bowl of fruit in years, I think jumping right to drawing you would be rushing, probably. I want to do you justice when I draw you.”

Bucky rolled his eyes even harder than before. “Oh, please, I’m not asking you to do it because I want you to draw me pretty. I’m asking because Rhodes said it might help, might be therapeutic.”

Steve looked down at his plate. “I’m still not so sure.”

After a moment Bucky placed his hand over his and Steve looked up at him. He was grinning crookedly, licking his lips, and leaning in for a kiss. Their lips met once, twice, and then Bucky pulled away and reached for the hem of his shirt. 

“I’m sure,” Bucky said. “Get your sketch pad, I’ll be in the bedroom.”

“I don’t think I even have a... ” but Steve forgot what it was he didn’t have as he watched Bucky’s naked dimpled ass disappear into the other room, trailing the last of his clothes along the way.

“Check under the sink!” Bucky called, followed by the sound of him flopping onto Steve’s creaky mattress.

Steve got up warily and opened the cabinet under the sink. Stuck between cleaning supplies and old Tupperware containers was a slim package wrapped in Sunday comic strips. Picking it up and opening it slowly, reverently, Steve felt a little like he’d been hit over the head. He was dizzy with something he couldn’t name, except to say that it was probably good. This was probably what it felt like to be in love. 

Inside the package was a large sketchpad and a case of charcoal pencils. They were the expensive kind, Steve could tell from the brand. He smoothed his fingers over the cover and opened the sketchpad to the first page, where Bucky had written in his tilted, perpetually rushed script:

“To Steve, 

Stop crying in the kitchen and go draw a dick. My dick. 

I love you, Bucky”

Steve huffed a laugh that sprung tears in his eyes. He opened the sketchpad to the first blank page and went to draw his boyfriend naked. If he didn’t get much drawing done, well, there was always tomorrow. And the next day, and the next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter spoilers:
> 
> VALENTINE’S DAY, SOMEHOW, AND A CLIMAX (no, not that kind, this fic is rated T for teens)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading!


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